PROTESTERS COVER PLENTY OF ISSUES, FROM MEDICAL MARIJUANA TO LIMITED GOVERNMENT

De'vorah L. Kappers struggles with arthritis, asthma, traumatic
stress disorder and anxiety attacks. She also is hard of hearing in
her left ear.

None of it stopped her from becoming part of the chaotic protest
scene that coincided with President Barack Obama's visit to Denver on Thursday.

Obama's appearance attracted an assortment of protest groups, ranging
from medical-marijuana advocates to law- and-order Republicans.

A handful of environmentalists came out, too, to say they didn't want
more coal plants built in Colorado.

Kappers, the former chairman of the Colorado State Democratic
Disabilities Initiative, was among a group of supporters for Andrew
Romanoff, who were protesting the president's visit to raise money
for his Democratic primary opponent, Sen. Michael Bennet.

They gathered outside the Sheraton hotel downtown, where Obama was
attending a cocktail fundraiser for Bennet.

"Romanoff earned my support," she said, adding that she was speaking
as an individual and not on behalf of the organization she once chaired.

At an earlier Obama event for Bennet at the Fillmore Auditorium,
protest groups with wildly divergent messages gathered in the parking
lot of a fast-food restaurant across the street.

Dick Hughes, 70, of Loveland said he was a member of a 9-12 group,
which he described as supporting policies for limited government.

Wearing a "Don't Tread on Me" T-shirt, Hughes said Obama is not
upholding the Constitution because of his push for health care reform
and his push for a reduction in the nation's carbon footprint.

About 20 others joined Hughes to express opposition to Obama's policies.

Nearby, about 30 people organized by the group Sensible Colorado,
which lobbies for the state's medical-marijuana industry, protested
the arrest by the Drug Enforcement Administration of Chris
Bartkowicz, who contends he was growing medical marijuana in his
Highlands Ranch home.

Dan Pope, 44, of Longmont said he struggles with muscular dystrophy
and found it "appalling" that federal agents were conducting such raids.

He noted that Colorado voters approved medical marijuana in 2000,
which he says gives him a constitutional right to grow and use it.

A group of about 14 Tea Party protesters were among those turned away
on Colfax Avenue by police working the event. Police told them they
had to walk down 14th or 16th avenues and could not be on Colfax.

"Now it appears as if there was no opposition to Obama and Bennet,"
fumed Daniel King, one of the Tea Party protesters. "It was
reminiscent of Hugo Chavez and Castro."

He said it was cold out, which meant it took extra effort to muster
the handful of people who did show up.

"And now we did it for nothing," he said.

His signs included one that said "Obama for Change" and used the
Soviet-style hammer and sickle.