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GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic
Protester Allen Lint vents his anger at Yakima Police Department Lt. Gary Belles outside Eisenhower High School following Vice-President Dick Cheney's speech there Friday afternoon. Lint, who's from Yakima, was protesting that he wasn't allowed to walk along a portion of 40th Avenue which had been closed for security reasons.
The word on the street outside Eisenhower High School was not kind for President Bush and the featured attraction of the day, Vice President Dick Cheney.

Written in patriotic red, white and blue and adorned with a peace symbol, a sign reading "Smush Bush" pretty much summed up the feelings of dozens of protesters who braved the 100-degree heat for hours Friday afternoon along busy South 40th Avenue.

"Obviously it's anybody but Bush at this point," explained Elaine Anderson, a 24-year-old Yakima resident whose sign, "Go home, Dick," was one of the few in the crowd actually aimed at the vice president.

Organized by a loose-knit coalition of labor groups, peace activists and elements of the Kerry campaign, the demonstrators kept it above the belt for the most part — even if some passers-by didn't.

"No war, kill commies!" yelled a motorist passing by in a green SUV while a passenger added his thoughts on the subject with aid of his middle finger. Minutes earlier a young man in a red Chevy Blazer did the same thing, echoing Cheney's now famous directive to Sen. Patrick Leahy.

Other motorists had more complimentary things to say, tooting their horns and giving the demonstrators the more digit-friendly thumbs-up sign as they drove by.

Teamsters organizer Brad Taylor of Pasco said he was pleased with the turnout, saying the Bush administration has been responsible for an economic recovery that has mainly benefited corporations and rich Americans at the expense of the middle class.

"This area has always been pretty conservative," he said. "Any time you can get anybody out to protest is a good thing."

It was difficult to estimate the size of the protest. At the scene, Yakima police Lt. Gary Belles said he did not take a head count but agreed it topped out at about 75 to 80 people.

Signs were the main weapons of the protesters until a group of more militant young people showed up just before Cheney's motorcade arrived. Incensed by the shutdown of 40th Avenue while Cheney was speaking, they chanted anti-Bush slogans and taunted police until the vice president's motorcade zipped back to the airport.

All of which was a little too much for Ciria Ochoa, 23, and her sister, Cynthia, 20, who live across the street and had front-row seats to the spectacle.

In so many words, they described themselves as undecided swing voters. They also said the demonstration did little to make up their minds either way.

"If anything it actually kind of made me mad, the way they acted," Cynthia Ochoa said. "It even kind of made me want to vote the other way."

Published on Saturday, July 31, 2004

Cheney Fires Up Faithful at Rally
By LEAH BETH WARD
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

JEFF HALLER/Yakima Herald-Republic
Vice President Dick Cheney shakes hands with some of the hundreds gathered after he spoke at Eisenhower High School in Yakima Friday. Also speaking at the event were Congressmen Doc Hastings and George Nethercutt and former Senator Alan Simpson.
Vice President Dick Cheney rallied thousands of diehard Republicans in Yakima on Friday by painting the newly minted Kerry-Edwards team as a one-way ticket to bigger government, a weak defense and anti-business policies.

"Their big idea is to raise our taxes. What we're hearing is the failed thinking of the past and we're not going back," Cheney said to a sweaty but appreciative crowd packing the gym at Eisenhower High School.

He suggested that Democrats want to appease the enemies of the United States, saying "Terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength. Instead they are caused by the perception of weakness."

JEFF HALLER/Yakima Herald-Republic
Vice President Dick Cheney speaks as supporters raise their signs and rally at Eisenhower High School in Yakima Friday.
The Bush-Cheney campaign said 2,500 tickets were handed out in Central Washington, including about 900 in Yakima. Attendees waited in a long line outside the gym before passing through a metal detector and getting "wanded" by security personnel. Secret Service agents were plentiful.

It was Cheney's second visit to Central Washington this week. On Monday, he spoke at a fund-raiser in Kennewick for GOP gubernatorial hopeful Dino Rossi, a former state senator from Sammamish.

JEFF HALLER/Yakima Herald-Republic
Vice President Dick Cheney speaks to hundreds gathered at Eisenhower High School in Yakima Friday.
Cheney was introduced by his wife, Lynne Cheney, after former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson warmed up the crowd with his folksy humor.

Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Pasco, and Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Spokane, also gave brief remarks. Nethercutt is running an energetic campaign against incumbent U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat.

"Yakima looks like Bush country," Cheney said to rousing applause. He predicted that Washington, which went for Al Gore in 2000, would send its 11 electoral votes this time to re-elect the Republican ticket.

Cheney hit familiar Republican themes: Congress needs to stop what he called "lawsuit abuse" by limiting jury awards and curbing frivolous claims, and it should extend the Bush tax cuts that have put the economy back on track.

GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic
Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife Lynn wave to a small crowd, composed mainly of media, law enforcement and fire personnel, after they emerged from Air Force Two after landing in Yakima Friday afternoon. Former U.S. Senator Alan Simpson is behind Cheney.
He promised the administration would continue supporting "a culture of life" by fighting partial-birth abortion. He did not address stem-cell research, the use of embryonic cells to create treatments or cures for debilitating diseases such as multiple sclerosis, diabetes and Alzheimer's. Democratic nominee John Kerry said in his acceptance speech that he would fund such research as president.

Cheney's strongest words came on the military and terrorism. The crowd hushed when he warned the nation is at a crucial crossroads. Terrorists, he said, "are every bit as intent on destroying us as the Axis was in World War II and the Soviet Union in the Cold War.

"This is an enemy we must vanquish, and with George Bush as your commander-in-chief, that is exactly what we will do," Cheney said.

As senators, Kerry and his running mate, John Edwards, authorized the war against Iraq but voted against an $87 billion military spending bill, Cheney noted. He mocked Kerry's explanation that the vote was a "complicated" issue.

"Funding troops in combat should never be a complicated matter," he said.

Washington state Democrats defended Kerry's vote as a statement on Bush economic policies.

"The American people are smart enough to know we live in a complex world. What Senator Kerry wanted to do at that particular time was to reverse the $20 trillion tax cut on the richest Americans," said Robert Perez, a spokesman for the state Democratic party.

Kim Scacco-Morten didn't attend the Cheney rally, but she teaches in the Cadet Alternative Program at Eisenhower, which gives individualized attention to kids who struggle to keep up with school work.

Scacco-Morten is angry that the Bush administration has cut Yakima schools' funding for the No Child Left Behind Act by 37 percent. In an interview before the rally, she said the cuts make it impossible to meet expectations under the act.

"When you don't fully fund it, many of the kids are going to get left behind," she said. "We just can't do it without manpower and money."

Cheney didn't address No Child Left Behind specifically in his half-hour speech, but he did say every child deserves an education.

Everything the vice president said pleased Earl Pearson, who waved a "Viva Bush" sign from the middle of the gym floor. "It was all true," he said.

Jose Orozco, 18, liked Cheney's directness.

"What he says is what he means. He gets to the point. He's got my vote," Orozco said.

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