McCain Visits Las Cruces and Thoughts on Protest

By Rebecca Powell, 8-21-08

We round the corner of the Pan-Am. A woman in Hawaiian shirt, bermudas and a straw hat breaks to the left, carrying an armful of signs. I push the stroller a little faster. “Excuse me. Can I see your signs?”

She turns, “You know, a presidential candidate is in town.”

Fifty miles from Mexico at the edge of the Chiuhuahuan Desert, Las Cruces, New Mexico is on the presidential candidates’ radar. Barack Obama granted the Las Cruces Sun News a phone interview, though he did not say if or when he would be visiting our little corner of the desert, and this morning, John McCain rolled into the Pan-Am Center on New Mexico State University’s campus. The boy and I cruised the edges of the town hall meeting until asked to leave by security.

The woman was there to protest McCain’s stance on the war in Iraq. I rephrased those last three words a dozen times. What do we call it? The war on Iraq? The war on terrorism? Naming it at all feels like taking a side. Bill McCamley and Nathan Small, both young and progressive politicians in Las Cruces, rallied a protest and press conference in response to McCain’s visit.

The woman we ran into was middle aged, friendly. Men of the same generation scampered in every direction, looking for a place to set up. They graciously granted me pictures and set about to educate me on the evils of war and Republicans.

A few hundred feet away freshmen are exploring the NMSU campus, preparing for the first day of classes.  The average age of the crowd McCamley and Small’s protest gathers is much older than the two organizers. I am not sure what it takes to inspire freshmen to protest. I am not sure what it would take to inspire me to protest. I am mostly an observer, not a placard holder or marcher.

On the day the war in Iraq began, a colleague of mine wore a black armband in mute protest. She taught tenth graders the difference between illusion and allusion while silently declaring her disapproval. In her late forties, I attributed the display to her age, to the specter of the 60s and 70s. Five years later, I wonder if it is only a generation gap that leads some to watch and some to act.