By Brett Barrouquere
The Associated Press

LOUISVILLE - Darci Thoune stood in the cold waving a sign in favor of allowing same-sex marriages. She hoped, but also doubted, President Bush would get the message.

"I think it's ridiculous that Bush is so uptight," Thoune said. "My tax dollars pay his salary. I think it's his job to listen to me."

Thoune was one of about 200 protesters outside the Galt House Hotel, where Bush held a re-election fund-raiser Thursday that raised more than $1 million.

Protest organizers said the variety of issues being raised and the number of people willing to brave temperatures in the mid-40s was a sign of how unhappy some are with Bush and his policies.

The protesters waved signs and beat on drums. Special education teachers walked with anti-war demonstrators. Unemployed blue collar workers held signs and chanted near environmentalists, like Aloma Dew of the Sierra Club.

"We're not going forward to a bright new tomorrow," Dew said. "We're going back to a future of dirtier air and water."

Police on horseback kept the protesters away from the hotel, with no demonstrators getting within nearly a block.

That didn't deter Stacy Dunsmore of Louisville from taking part in what she called her first political protest. "America is in trouble," Dunsmore said. "It's Bush's responsibility to get us out of it."

Sidi Abdallahi was more concerned with problems in his native Mauritania in Africa. Abdallahi said the country is ruled by a dictator who should be overthrown by the United States.

Abdallhi said his country is on good terms with the United States, so no one helps while people are tortured and killed.

"Nobody is doing anything about it," Abdallahi said. "We have no oil."