Election 2008

McCain opens Friday in Denver

By Joe Hanel

Herald Denver Bureau

DENVER – Republican presidential candidate John McCain spent Thursday night at Denver’s Brown Palace Hotel and began Friday with a rally at the National Western Stock Show arena.

Retired Broncos stars John Elway and John Lynch introduced McCain.

“Senator, it’s the fourth quarter,” Elway said. “Some pundits I watch on TV are already counting you out, but I know a thing or two about comebacks, and I cannot wait until Nov. 4 when you once again prove those pundits wrong.”

McCain began with a joke on water he has used in previous stops in Colorado.

“My friends, as a resident of the state of Arizona, thank you for the water. Please keep sending it,” he said.

Then he got serious on the topic.

“I will not renegotiate the Colorado River Compact. Colorado will keep its water, and that will not change,” McCain said.

The Arizona senator told the Pueblo Chieftain in August that the compact “needs to be renegotiated over time.” The compact protects Colorado from California and Arizona by reserving about half the Colorado River for the smaller upstream states.

McCain used most of his 25-minute speech in Denver to rip into Obama on taxes, slamming the Democrat for saying he would “spread the wealth around.”

Police ejected four protesters – two of them in wheelchairs – after the group chanted for the first five minutes of McCain’s speech.