Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

McCain fundraiser in Minnesota draws protesters
By Clarise Tushie-Lessard
Minnesota Daily, U. Minnesota
June 19, 2008

The Republican National Convention isn't until September, but Thursday afternoon Minneapolis got a small taste of the protests that may come.

About 50 people gathered outside the Hilton Hotel in Minneapolis to demonstrate as presumptive Republican presidential candidate John McCain held a fundraiser inside the building.

Members of several organizations took part in the demonstration, including the United Steel Workers, the Welfare Rights Committee, the Painters Allied Trade Union, and others.

Protesters wanted to make their position known to both McCain and those in his party, said Sam Ross-Brown, an incoming first-year University student at the rally.

"McCain has represented himself as being a supreme sponsor of aggression," Ross-Brown, a member of the student group Students for a Democratic Society, said.

Protesters lined Marquette Avenue in front of the hotel holding large blue letters that spelled, "McCain terrorist" and chanted using two bullhorns.

Meredith Aby, a member of the Anti-War Committee that organized the protest, said she hopes the protest showed that Minnesota won't be a win for McCain.

"We see protest as the main way to try to get McCain and the Republican Party to have to hear that people in America don't agree with they way they want to take our country," she said.

The protest moved behind the hotel as the fundraiser ended, where fundraiser attendees were leaving.

Ross-Brown, who attended the University of Minnesots last year as a post-secondary student, said the rally went beyond criticizing McCain.

"This kind of protest … is meant to organize people outside of the protest movement. It's to let people know that there is that position out there and it's very active," he said.

[ Back to Student Voices ]