NASHVILLE — With President Bush visiting Salt Lake City to address the American Legion today, the Utah city on Wednesday hosted one of the antiwar protests that presidential visits often attract. But this protest occurred in the capital of one of the reddest states in the nation, and one of the speakers was the mayor of its largest city.
In Salt Lake City, the ruckus surrounding Mayor Rocky Anderson, an iconoclastic Democrat, is seen by many as just "Rocky being Rocky," said Randy Simmons, a political science professor at Utah State University who is married to one of Anderson's cousins.
Still, the protest against Bush and his Iraq policy is a reminder that, even in friendly territory, the intensifying debate over the war is dominating his presidency.
The Utah Republican Party sponsored radio advertisements around the state denouncing the mayor and those advocating what the party calls "cut and run" tactics in Iraq.
The mayor's office hired three temporary workers to answer the more than 1,600 calls it received over two days. Anderson's spokesman said the Republican radio effort stirred up not just opposition, but also new demonstrations of support for the mayor's anti-Bush positions.
Previewing his speech during a Republican fundraising appearance Wednesday evening in Nashville, the president said that leaving Iraq too early would "shred the credibility of the United States of America," and that terrorists and insurgents fighting U.S. forces there would "follow us here."
He said it would turn Iraq into a terrorist haven much as Afghanistan was under the Taliban -- but in this case the terrorists would have Iraq's oil money to fund their activities.
Salt Lake City's position as a Democratic island in a very Republican state notwithstanding, the protest underscored the sensitivity surrounding the war -- not just in more typically liberal communities, but in a state where the National Guard has contributed heavily to the force in Iraq, and one that gave Bush 71% of its vote two years ago.
That was the greatest percentage of any state in the 2004 election. Polls show that Bush remains more popular in Utah than in any other state.
The political effects of the war are apparent in multiple corners as the midterm elections approach. Several Republican candidates have accepted Bush's readiness to help them raise money but have avoided being pictured in public with him.
