Cheney visit to Idaho greeted by spirited protests

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Thursday, August 17, 2006

From AP: Cheney visits Boise, colorful protests ensue

Demonstrators hold up a banner in downtown Boise, Idaho, Wednesday afternoon, Aug. 16, 2006, to protest a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney attended a fundraiser for Idaho's 1st Congressional District Republican candidate, Bill Sali.




BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The sideshow accompanying Vice President Dick Cheney's visit to Boise to stump for congressional candidate Bill Sali included the irreverent: Sportsmen in blaze orange vests handing out leaflets on hunter safety.

The somber: Peace activists silently lining a major downtown arterial with tombstones to mark the mounting death toll in Iraq.

And the zany: A Dick Cheney look-alike contest sponsored by a third-party candidate. The man with the most Cheney-like visage was promised $22 in free gas and a box of shotgun shells.

Democrat Larry Grant's campaign ordered about a dozen orange vests to mock Cheney's accidental February shooting of a quail hunting partner, who was wounded by shotgun pellets to the torso, neck and face.

Democratic volunteers handed out pamphlets with pictures of Idaho's upland game birds, including the Mountain and California Quail. The banner read, "Larry Grant supports Idahoans' right to bear arms and hunt...safely."

more: http://www.yakima-herald.com/page/dis/286818781927656