By Eileen Buckley
Buffalo, NY – Vice President Dick Cheney ended a very successful upstate fundraising effort in Buffalo Monday night. He appeared before a large crowd of local Republican supporters at the Park Lane Restaurant.
More than 300 people packed the Park Lane to hear Cheney speak. The Vice President was escorted by Republican Governor George Pataki for his stops in Syracuse, Rochester and then Buffalo. By the end of the night, his upstate swing raised $700,000 for the Bush-Cheney 2004 re-election campaign.
"We are planning to do everything we can to carry this state come next November," Cheney said.
Cheney says he's convinced President Bush will be re-elected for a "job well done." And says the war in Iraq and the war on terror will continue.
"Iraq is now the central front on the war on terror," Cheney said. "And we are going to roll back that terrorist threat at the heart of its power in the Middle East. We are aggressively striking the terrorists there, so we do not have to face them on the streets of our own cities."
But outside the Park Lane, protestors demonstrated against the Bush Administration's actions in Iraq. The protest was organized by the Western New York Peace Center. Many chanted "our country is not for sale," while others like one unidentified woman told those leaving the reception that their $1,000 ticket could have helped the "unemployed."
"Do you know what your meal could have bought? Think of all those unemployed people. Nine million -- over nine million -- people unemployed. There are children that don't have kindergartens now," she yelled.
Protestors were kept far back from the entrance of the restaurant. Police made them stand behind a snow fence along Chapin Parkway. So they placed banners on on the fence that called Bush and Cheney war criminals.
Back inside, the fundraiser was filled with many area business leaders and top Republicans, like Congressmen Jack Quinn and Tom Reynolds. Erie County Republican Party Chairman Bob Davis says some GOP supporters paid up to $2,000 to attend the Cheney event.
"The National Republican Committee and the Bush-Cheney team are looking at Erie County and the New York State, despite the significant Democratic enrollment advantage, as a state Republicans can win," Davis said.
Davis says he's very optimistic that last night's local fundraiser will top $400,000. He says that would set a record for the most money raised in a single Republican event in Western New York. Davis says he also hoping it was a "warm up" for a George W. Bush visit in 2004.