Thursday October 12 12:05 AM ET Protesters Left Out in Cold at U.S. Campaign Debate
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (Reuters) - Protesters were left, quite literally, out in the cold on Wednesday as presidential candidates Republican George W. Bush (news - web sites) and Democrat Al Gore (news - web sites) debated at North Carolina's Wake Forest University on an unseasonably cool autumn night.
Several hundred protesters faced off with police in riot gear and then held a peaceful sit-in at a gated campus entrance to discuss issues facing the nation, while dozens of others left in frustration over tight controls placed on them during the debate on the idyllic campus in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Unlike the first debate in Boston last week, which drew hundreds of vocal protesters, tight controls on everything from the type of signs they could carry (paper only) to the contents of purses (no cell phones or hair brushes) frustrated protesters who had obtained permits to demonstrate.
``They've done everything they could to discourage this protest,'' said Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists whose cell phone and hair brush had to be left in the car before a campus bus, arriving 90 minutes late, would take her to the protest site.
Holding a huge orange banner of American Atheists organization, Johnson stood vigil next to members of a local Hare Krishna community on hand to purify the atmosphere with chants to God and hand out snacks promoting a newly opened restaurant in nearby Greensboro run by one of the group's members.
Local police said they arrested a man who tried to bypass a fence erected along the perimeter of the campus. A gated entrance to the campus had been closed earlier after police found a suspicious package.
Protest groups were required to obtain a permit two weeks ago, then were put through metal detectors and assigned color-coded wrist bands to gain access to the makeshift fenced-in corral built on a soccer field near a campus gate.
But most chose to protest instead just outside the gate of Wake Forest University, a private college that placed tight controls on access by requiring all nonstudents to park off campus and ride buses onto the grounds.
``We had a permit, we did everything that they told us to do. Unfortunately, they had this on private property so they could control everything,'' said Libertarian Party supporter J. Jones of nearby Advance, North Carolina, whose group was one of the few to protest in the corral.