Aug. 25--Jeb Bush was 20 minutes into his presidential campaign kickoff speech when a group of protesters stood, unveiled neon green T-shirts spelling out "legal status is not enough" and began shouting.
The interruption, a rebuke of his refusal to support granting citizenship to the estimated 11 million people in the country illegally, caused the Republican candidate to pause.
He looked toward the rafters inside the college gymnasium in Miami and addressed the cadre.
"So that our friends know," he said, his voice rising, "the next president of the United States will pass meaningful immigration reforms."
The confrontation is the type that has played out several times this summer as 2016 presidential hopefuls traverse the country. While demonstrators shouting down candidates is as old as politics, this election has put White House hopefuls in the unusual position of defending themselves even to apparent allies, and is forcing Democrats and Republicans alike to grapple with questions about immigration, racial tension and other issues.
Candidates have tried a number of approaches to win over protesters -- and to keep their own message as the focus of their campaign rallies.
At a recent town hall in North Las Vegas, Hillary Rodham Clinton offered an updated campaign speech that wove in concerns from Black Lives Matter activists, moving to address the matter before attendees in the majority black audience could ask a question or possibly disrupt her. Hours earlier, video had surfaced showing a tense exchange between the Democratic front-runner and activists from the movement in a closed-door meeting in New Hampshire.
A week before, Bush, whose campaign has boasted that he will go anywhere and speak to anyone, was shouted down by activists at a Nevada town hall in the same area where Clinton held her event.
Jamie Hall of the group Unity Vegas, formed last year during the outcry over police shooting deaths of unarmed black men, questioned Bush about the treatment of minorities in the criminal justice system but found his response "vague."
More effective, she said, was the group shouting "black lives matter" at him, forcing Bush to end the town hall abruptly.
"It made headlines and became an issue for him," Hall said. "Sometimes you have to kick in the door by interrupting. Then it opens new opportunities and conversations."
Interruptions can't be dismissed, said Stephanie Cutter, a Democratic strategist who worked as President Obama's 2012 deputy campaign manager.
During that election, Latino activists, upset that Obama did not make immigration reform a central platform in his first term, repeatedly protested during campaign rallies. Often, Obama would point to executive actions he had taken and meet privately with protesters.
"Candidates have to find a way to communicate" with protesters and let them "know their issues matter," Cutter said.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has amassed large crowds while pursuing the Democratic nomination -- including an estimated 27,500 in Los Angeles this month -- hired campaign staffers who have worked with the Black Lives Matter movement. He's been interrupted a handful of times by the group and has sometimes gone off script to tout his record on civil rights dating to the 1960s.
The campaign views disruptions as an inroad to talking about an array of topics, said Michael Briggs, a spokesman for Sanders.
"We see it as an opportunity for him to speak about key issues that people are raising and let them know what his proposals are," Briggs said. "It's not bad at all."
Sanders has made criminal justice reform a pillar of his 2016 campaign. His platform calls for, among other things, requiring body cameras to be worn by all law enforcement officers and for police departments to be more diverse and reflect the communities they serve.
Tia Oso, national coordinator for Black Alliance for Just Immigration, which works with Black Lives Matter activists, was among those who interrupted an event with both Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley in Phoenix in July. Oso called on O'Malley to recognize high-profile deaths of blacks at the hands of police. His response, "all lives matter," drew further protests, and he apologized.
"Disruptions and direct confrontations are all a part of strategies and are all tactics for getting the message heard and igniting a movement," Oso said. "Electoral politics is not our primary focus, though presidential elections are a huge focus in American life. And what we're talking about is American life."
Last week, activists with the movement released proposals calling for limiting police use of force and increasing oversight of departments.
In a recent interview in San Francisco, O'Malley said running for president is partly about enabling the conversation.
"Even if sometimes that conversation takes the form of anger and grief and suffering and hurt, it's important to be present at the center of that conversation if you're truly offering yourself as a leader," he said.
O'Malley, who served two terms as mayor of Baltimore before becoming governor, said he didn't brace for disruptions on the campaign trail.
"When you're a big-city mayor, particularly if you're a minority mayor as I was in a majority African American city, there was never a night when I wasn't out in public and always very intentionally making myself vulnerable by being present," he said "You just stop thinking of it in terms of vulnerability and, instead, you think of it in terms of being present and serving."
Steve Schmidt, a senior advisor on John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, said "spontaneity and being able to think on your feet are underappreciated virtues by a candidate."
"You see something about their character in these moments ... how quick are they on their feet," he said.
Still, not all candidates are responsive to protesters, and some come off as dismissive.
When a group of mostly Latino activists interrupted GOP front-runner Donald Trump at a massive rally in Phoenix this summer, the billionaire businessman brushed them aside.
As the group shouted at Trump, assailing his inflammatory rhetoric toward Mexicans as racist, he mostly ignored them. But as they were escorted out of the convention center hall, he offered some parting words that drew applause from supporters.
"Don't worry," he said, grinning. "We'll take our country back. ... Very soon."
Times staff writer Mark Z. Barabak contributed to this report.
kurtis.lee@latimes.com
@kurtisalee
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