They were loud, wet, and very angry, but they weren’t going to take the election results sitting down.

About 20 Syracuse University students sparked two anti-Bush rallies on the Quad on Wednesday and Thursday night to protest and express disappointment and rage at President George W. Bush’s re-election.

‘We’re just independent people who don’t like Bush and want to live,’ said Yusuf Adbul-Qadir, a freshman political science major. ‘Love freedom, love something, just don’t love Bush.’

The rally started out as a shouting contest. Protesters tried to recruit passers-by with angry cries of ‘Bush is on coke’ and ‘daddy’s war.’ Quickly, though, the protesters realized they needed a plan for the future.

‘I’m disappointed. It’s just a bunch of ranting kids right now. We need to talk about what we’re really going to do,’ said Jason Tschantre, a senior film major.

The group, whose members said would have been much larger had it not rained, wants to create awareness about the problems that they believe will come from Bush’s re-election. The idea of meeting nightly in the Quad was suggested, but quickly overruled in favor of more orderly options.

‘If there’s a voice that says ‘We’re the youth and we hate what’s going on,’ someone will have to listen,’ Tschantre said.

Tschantre and Tom Hackman, a freshman political science major, voiced plans to work with other progressive student groups to build more support. Eventually, the as yet unnamed group could send letters to local representatives.

Last night’s rally took a very different path than the one the night before. On Wednesday, a group of 30 anti-Bush students on the Quad met resistance from about 20 pro-Bush students, Hackman said. Shouts and insults flew until Public Safety broke the clash up, telling students they had to leave because they did not have a permit to assemble.

The students voiced frustration not just about Bush’s re-election, but also about the Kerry campaign and its failure to come alive until the last two weeks of the campaign.

‘Forget the Democratic Party,’ said Tschantre, ‘Kerry failed me.’

Neither rally was associated or supported by College Democrats, whose listserv asked students to accept the election and not be sore losers, said Ryan O’Leary, a freshman retail management major.

‘They’re just standing by and doing nothing,’ O’Leary said.

The lack of activism and reaction was exactly what the protesters hoped to dispel. The group wants students to realize the problems that have occurred and will occur, said Mo Davies, a junior theater major.

‘What’s happening is a crime. We shouldn’t just lie down,’ Davies said.

Published on November 4, 2004 at 12:00 pm