By Stuart Sudak

Across the lake they were getting ready for a presidential visit.

That’s at least what we assume, since the private fundraiser Tuesday at the Eden Prairie home of William and Tani Austin for Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and attended by President Bush was closed to the press. (William Austin is chief executive officer of EP-based Starkey Laboratories, a manufacturer of hearing aids)

They were doing the same on the other side. Well, sort of.

Here, the reception was most likely a bit chillier than what Bush probably later received from those who donated anywhere from $1,000 per person to $14,600 a couple toward Coleman’s re-election bid (about $1.2 million was hoped to be raised, according to published reports) to get in the Austins’ door.

Fifty or so protesters, many clutching such signs as “Support the Troops, End the War,” gathered at Bryant Lake Regional Park to voice their displeasure with Bush, Coleman, and the Iraq War.

With Austins’ house in the background, Rick Hanson, of the Minnesota chapter of Military Families Speak Out, talked in front of the TV cameras and fellow protesters of his Marine son Eric, 21, who currently is serving in Iraq. He does not want his son there. He doesn’t want any sons there.

Afterward, Hanson was asked if the protesters’ presence in the park could really sway Bush’s mind on the war.

No, he answered quickly.

So why do it then?

“I have no choice,” said the Minnetonka man. “It’s the right thing to do.”

Mike Perkins, also of Minnetonka and Military Families Speak Out, hopes Bush would do what the majority of Americans and Iraqis want: end the war. But he’s not holding his breath.

“No, he usually doesn’t listen,” said Perkins, whose son served in Iraq. “I know of nine families who have had to bury their sons. It’s too many. Just too many lives being lost.”

In a rented canoe, Katrina Plotz and Ha Sang Min, both of Bloomington, paddled the lake, Plotz holding up a sign that read, “U.S. out now.”

“It says it all,” she said. “We want the war ended. We want the troops out now.”

Peering through binoculars, Jim Johnson of Eagan kept watch over the Austin house from a pier in the park. It was still hours before Air Force One was to touch down in Minnesota, but Johnson was ready. Why was he there? Is he against the war?

“Damn right,” he said. “How can you not be?”

Across the lake, on the lawn of a house a few down from the Austin house, a young woman stood on the yard, defiantly holding up an “I love Bush” sign (“love” was symbolized with a heart shape).

“If I lived in a $4 million home, I would love him too,” he said. “That’s what’s called his base, isn’t it?”

Ricky Rossow, of St. Louis Park, observed all of this from his perch on the pier. He was there to fish with his kids, not to protest.

“I think he sees this all over the world,” he said of Bush. “I’m for ending this war, too, but I’m not sure I would want to protest.”

In all, about 70 officers from multiple agencies were involved with helping with security, Eden Prairie police Lt. Jim Morrow said. That included controlling traffic through motorcade routes, internal and external security and perimeter control, and working on the media and protest sites.