McCain-Palin rally draws protesters.

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By Christopher N. Osher / Denver Post

About a dozen protesters touting causes ranging from the right for women to have abortions to environmental issues greeted those streaming into the John McCain and Sarah Palin rally in Colorado Springs today.

Toni Panetta, the political director of NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado, targeted McCain's votes opposing federal funding of programs that would pay for birth control for low-income women as well as his call to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

"I'd like to ask Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin to clarify their position on health care policies," Panetta said. "Sen. McCain told us on Thursday that change was coming to Washington. But given Sen. McCain's strong anti-choice positions and given Gov. Palin's pro-life credentials, I'm wondering what type of change they would really bring."

Panetta and the other protesters made their case from the parking lot of the Colorado Jet Center, where the Republican candidates for president and vice president spoke to supporters.

Panetta challenged McCain to look into the eyes of a mother "who struggles to balance the checkbook and make a mortgage payment while choosing between whether to fill a gas tank to take her kids to school or to fill her month birth control prescription."

She added that if McCain and Palin succeed in overturning Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that made it legal for women to get abortions, she wondered how McCain and Palin would deal with an influx of illegal, back alley abortions.

"My last question is to Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin is, in a world where Roe vs. Wade is overturned, which they both advocate, just like George W. Bush, how much time in prison should a woman serve for having an illegal abortion?" she asked. "Related to that: Who would provide safe care in states where abortion is illegal if a woman needs an abortion?"

Anti-war protester Eric Verlo, 47, of Colorado Springs, held a sign aloft proclaiming McCain as a "POW fraud."

"Go live in Canada," shouted a McCain supporter in line to see the presidential candidate.

"This is our country, and we want want it back," Verlo shouted back. "We want it back for democracy."

A small contingent held signs and dressed in wolf and polar bear costumes.

Those in the group called themselves PUP: Protect us from Palin.

They said Palin's energy policies and her decision to sue the federal government over its decision to list the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act showed she could not be trusted.

They also argued that the Palin administration had approved and expanded Alaska's aerial gunning program, in which wolves and bears can be shot from aircraft.

"With the McPalin campaign we'll be drilling the country to hell," said one of the protesters, Nicole Rosmarino. "She has a long record of bad policies on the environment."

One woman dressed in a red dress with a sling of bullets draped across her chest proclaimed herself: "Miss global warming," mocking Palin's beauty pageant past and her environmental policies.

Tony Abdo, 56, of Colorado Springs, supports neither presidential candidate, but came to shout out his disapproval of the treatment of prisoners at Guantanomo.

"Stop torture," he shouted.

"Stop torturing us," a Republican faithful challenged. "Shut up."

"Man, we finally made some conversation here," Abdo said, happy to get some notice at least.