President Bush's call for more American troops in Iraq set off several Triangle protests Thursday evening, all organized by the left-wing political group MoveOn.org.

The rally in downtown Chapel Hill, drawing nearly 200 people at its peak, proved the most boisterous and well-attended in the Triangle.

In Durham and Raleigh, MoveOn.org sponsored tamer "emergency rallies." The group expected 475 such gatherings nationwide.

The protest in Chapel Hill doubled as a pointed plea to lawmakers. The activists gathered to encourage three lawmakers -- U.S. Rep. David Price, a Chapel Hill Democrat, and Republican Sens. Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr -- to resist Bush's plan.

Homemade signs, impromptu chants and bullhorn speeches marked the Chapel Hill rally. It drew college students, baby boomers and older people.

"The Bush administration is in la-la land if it thinks we support what they're doing in Iraq," said Tom Henkel, 70, a semi-retired former Navy officer who spoke to the crowd through a megaphone.

"It's wrong," inciting a chorus of cheers. "Morally wrong."

In addition to sending 21,500 additional service members, Bush's "New Way Forward" plan calls for $1.2 billion more in reconstruction aid and for Iraqi troops to take a stronger hand in joint combat operations.

About 50 protesters grouped in Raleigh's Moore Square downtown before rush hour, then met traffic outside Crabtree Valley Mall.

The crowd outside the mall, holding placards such as "Bring Them Home Now," slimmed to 13 by sundown. They received mostly sympathetic honks from passing cars, although a white pickup revved its engine menacingly.

"Pre-Iraq War, they would moon us," said Heather Griswold, 47, who also protested as the war began in 2003.

In downtown Durham, military wife Marjorie McKeloy was one of 100 or so people rallying at Main and Gregson streets.

"My deployed husband would protest if he could," read one side of the sign she held. "How about a surge of common sense?" read the other.

"He joined the Army to defend the right to protest, so I figured, the least I could do is protest for him, for his life," said McKeloy, 37, a communications specialist.

Others held signs that said "Troops Should Not Die For Oil" and "We Have a Dictator Showing Iraq How to Have a Democracy." A few participated in chants led by a spirited Julia Reddy, 22, a junior at Duke University.

Earlier on Thursday, the Elders for Peace foreshadowed the main event in Chapel Hill with a noon gathering at the same Franklin Street location.

Seven people from the anti-war group, all older than 70, held posterboards decrying the war and called to passers-by. Most folks regarded them unblinkingly.

"Those old ladies are fine by me," said C.C. Farrington, 50, headed back to his UNC-Chapel Hill student stores job from lunch. "I see them all the time. I just smile, wave and move on."

(Staff writers Stanley Chambers and Josh Shaffer contributed to this report.)

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