SALEM, N.H. (Jan. 6) — Power to the people.
In a surprising twist, protestors lined the walkway outside Woodbury School in Salem, Sunday afternoon.
Sen. John McCain of Arizona, held a town hall meeting in New Hampshire, where he has been gaining ground in the Republican fight for the nomination. In a poll released Saturday by the Concord Monitor, McCain was leading former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachussetts by 35 percent to 29 percent.
But not everyone was thrilled to see him.
Eric Green is a representative of NumbersUSA.com, an organization that is protesting McCain’s stance on immigration laws. They are here, Green said, to expose McCain’ immigration voting record.
“John McCain voted for amnesty, along with Senator Ted Kennedy, and it would allow the people who broke into this country to obtain the very things they came here to get. Illegally,” Green said. McCain has disputed the characterization of his vote as favoring amnesty.
American Friends Service Committee is another organization that hoisted signs across from McCain supporters, who did the same. Arnold Alpert, the program coordinator, said the group was protesting the cost of war in Iraq.
“It’s time to say that the billions, trillions of dollars being spent on this war needs to be shifted,” Alpert said. “We need to be paying for healthcare, for housing, for education, and for rebuilding Iraq. And to make sure we are taking care of the veterans of the Iraq war.”
Both groups plan to attend other events. Alpert said he would be at Democratic events too. But some McCain supporters saw their candidate as being unfairly singled out.
Sandra Chase, a McCain supporter, drove from New York to support the Senator.
“This is America, they’re welcome to their opinion and they’re welcome to be here,” Chase said. “I just don’t think they’re at the other campaigns the way they are at McCain’s. I just think they should even it out.”
(Larissa Padden, a magazine-newspaper-online journalism graduate student, is covering the New Hampshire primaries for the Utica Observer-Dispatch.)
-30-
