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"Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star", 149 May 7, 1918 |
Posted on 05/05/2005 4:48:29 PM PDT by mondoman
WASHINGTON - Rep. Tom Tancredo ought to reconsider his membership in the Republican Party, a Utah congressman said Wednesday after the two GOP lawmakers put an intraparty rift over immigration policy on full public display.
"I think he ought to consider his views and decide whether they're consistent with the Republican Party," Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, said of the Colorado congressman after the two clashed repeatedly during a forum sponsored by the Latino Coalition, a Hispanic business group.
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Cannon, a leading proponent of President Bush's proposed guest- worker program, has had a running feud with Tancredo, an opponent of the plan and outspoken advocate of tougher immigration enforcement. Last year, a political action committee founded by Tancredo targeted Cannon during his primary election challenge.
The two men sat side by side on stools at Wednesday's event inside Washington's J.W. Marriott hotel, and the rhetoric got so emotional that at one point they had a comical tussle over who would get to hold the microphone next.
The debate began with a third panelist, Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., denouncing unnamed people he said were exploiting the immigration issue because of bigotry, hatred and prejudice.
"If not for the undocumented workers in this country, I'd say that this room would not have been as clean and well-organized this morning," Gutierrez said.
Tancredo challenged Gutierrez when he took the microphone.
"We certainly would not want to pander to anyone on this issue, would we?" Tancredo said. "What I just heard was not that, was it?"
Tancredo repeated his long-standing call for the country to close its "porous borders" before it considers a new guest-worker program.
"It is crazy to suggest this nation should not do everything possible to secure the border," Tancredo said, saying a desire for cheap, immigrant labor could leave the borders open to terrorists or narcotics traffickers. Tancredo equates Bush's proposal to "amnesty" for illegal immigrants, saying it would reward people who entered the country illegally.
When it was his turn, Cannon immediately endorsed Gutierrez's earlier statement. He said the vast majority of Americans believe that undocumented immigrants should have "a path to citizenship" as long as they have willing employers, have not committed crimes and already are contributing to society.
Cannon said only a small minority of people "truly believe we should kick out" all illegal immigrants. He cited one of Tancredo's political allies, conservative commentator Pat Buchanan, who got about 1 percent of the vote after he left the Republican Party and ran for president in 2000 as a third-party candidate.
"I don't think there's a place in the Republican Party for racism, for xenophobia, for ideas that are fundamentally un-American," Cannon said.
Tancredo clapped quietly, saying he also sees no place in the debate for racism or xenophobia, which refers to a fear of foreign people or things.
Still, some observers - including a Tancredo staff member - interpreted it as an indirect reference to Tancredo, since he has recently toyed with the idea of following in Buchanan's footsteps and mounting a presidential campaign in 2008.
Asked after the event if he thought Tancredo was racist or xenophobic, Cannon said: "I don't know what motivates him."
In an interview, Tancredo fired back at Cannon, pointing to his primary election challenge by Republican Matt Throckmorton in 2004. The Team America PAC, founded by Tancredo and chaired by Buchanan's sister, Bay Buchanan, backed Throckmorton. Another group, Project U.S.A., placed billboards saying "Congressman Chris Cannon wants amnesty for illegal aliens. Do you?"
"Of the two of us, Mr. Cannon is the only one who has had a primary (challenge since taking office)," Tancredo said. "Evidently, there are a lot of people in his district who believe he is not Republican enough."
Tancredo has recently started traveling to early presidential primary states like New Hampshire, saying he wants to make sure the "serious candidates" put the immigration issue front-and-center in the 2008 race.
He has said it is unlikely he would actually run in - or win - a presidential race, but that he would consider a campaign if other candidates ignore the issue.
But he sees no need to leave the Republican Party.
"I believe the Republican Party is with me on the issue," Tancredo said.
"As long as that's the case, I frankly can't think why I would change. In the Republican Party, more people agree with me than with President Bush and Mr. Cannon (on immigration)."
Tancredo was facing a polite but generally skeptical crowd at The Latino Coalition event. Before he appeared, an opening speaker, while listing the VIPs invited to speak, added, "I'm sorry, but we also have Congressman Tom Tancredo."
That prompted a smattering of boos and hisses.
About 30 minutes after Tancredo, Cannon and Gutierrez left the stage, President Bush appeared for a presentation on Social Security. He got huge applause when he diverged to talk about his guest worker plan, which could go before Congress later this year.
The GOP isn't going to "go on attack" on those issues. They like having social conservative issues continuing to fester with no resolution- that way they can make a lot of noise at election time about how they will fix it all, in order to get the social conservatives to vote for them. But if they really did address those issues then they wouldn't be able to haul them out every four years to fool everyone once again.
Sure, Tacredo a real winner -- he was able to get 70 people to pay $13 for dinner to hear him speak.
Without having to listen to him speak, the dinner would have cost $25. ;)
http://www.greeleytrib.com/article/20050503/NEWS/105030066
"Tancredo, a Republican who represents Congressional District 6, basically the counties south of Denver, gave a rousing illegal-immigration policy speech to about 70 people who attended a $13-a-plate dinner hosted by the Greeley Republican Women."
Mr. Cannon, have you ever actually READ what the Republican Party stands for? I suggest you take your own advice and check to see if YOUR views are consistant with THIS:
"The United States of America is a nation not a league... It is the immediate duty of congress fully to investigate the effects of the immigration and importation of [immigrants] on the moral and material interests of the country."
-- 1876 REPUBLICAN Party Platform
“The Republican party having its birth in a hatred of slave labor and a desire that all men may be truly free and equal, is unalterably opposed to placing our workingmen in competition with any form of servile labor, whether at home or abroad. In this spirit, we denounce the importation of contract labor…as an offense against the spirit of American institutions; and we pledge ourselves to sustain the presen law restricting… immigration, and to provide such further legislation as is necessary to carry out its purposes”.
-- 1884 REPUBLICAN Party Platform
“For the protection of the equality of our American citizenship and of the wages of our workingmen, against the fatal competition of low priced labor, we demand that the immigration laws be thoroughly enforced, and so extended as to exclude from entrance to the United States those who can neither read nor write.”
--1896 REPUBLICAN Party Platform
"We pledge the Republican Party to the enactment of appropriate laws to give relief from the constantly growing evil of induced or undesirable immigration, which is inimical to the progress and welfare of the people of the United States."
--1912 REPUBLICAN Party Platform
“The restriction of immigration is a Republican policy. Our party formulated and enacted into law the quota system, which for the first time has made possible an adequate control of foreign immigration. Rigid examination of applicants in foreign countries prevented the coming of criminals and other undesirable classes while other provisions of the law have enabled the President to suspend immigration of foreign wage-earners who otherwise, directly or indirectly, would have increased unemployment among native born and legally resident foreign born wage-earners in this country…We favor the continuance and strict enforcement of our present laws upon this subject.”
--1932 REPUBLICAN Party Platform
“There should be considerable concern over the presence of several million illegal aliens in the country who fill jobs that otherwise would be available to American workers. We support increased efforts to deal more effectively with this problem and favor legislation prohibiting employers from knowingly hiring illegal aliens. The Democrat leaders in Congress have systematically killed every attempt to debate this legislation in recent years.”
--1976 REPUBLICAN Party Platform
“We support efforts to secure our borders from the threat of illegal immigration. Illegal immigration has reached crisis proportions, with more than four million illegal aliens now present in the United States. That number, growing by 300,000 each year, burdens taxpayers, strains public services, takes jobs, and increases crime. Republicans in both the House and Senate have passed bills that tighten border enforcement, speed up deportation of criminal aliens, toughen penalties for overstaying visas, and streamline the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Illegal aliens should not receive public benefits other than emergency aid, and those who become parents while illegally in the United States should not be qualified to claim benefits for their offspring. We call for harsh penalties against exploiters who smuggle illegal aliens and for those who profit from the production of false documents. Republicans believe that by eliminating the magnet for illegal immigration, increasing border security, enforcing our immigration laws, and producing counterfeit-proof documents, we will finally put an end to the illegal immigration crisis.”
--1996 REPUBLICAN Party Platform
"The [Republican] Party believes that Congress should adequately staff and fund the U.S. Border partrol to protect and secure our intertional borders...and that the U.S. Border patrol be deployed within in the u.S. to locate and secure all illegal aliens who have previously entered our country, to exxpedite their return to their source country...the [Republican] Party belives the security of our orders is an urgent national interest...[we] oppose illegal immigration and all forms of amnesty, or any legal status granted to illegal immigrants irrespective of program, name or race"
--2004 Texas REPUBLICAN Party platform
The pubbies have found a sure way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in 2008.
The number of voters turned totally off & simply staying home for the election, just might give it over to the dems.
"Because they are feeling some heat on immigration and are circling their wagons."
That is exactly it. Even myself who is a supporter of dramatically increasing legal immigration and educated foreigners coming in.. Can't support illegal immigrants.
No, we understand supply and demand. We are importing a new underclass, while ensuring that our native undercalss cannot rise. It is economic and political suicide.
Cannon is a rino, and should have been ousted from office at the last re-election.
Maybe he is the one who should not be in the party???
"Last year, a political action committee founded by Tancredo targeted Cannon during his primary election challenge. "
Ahhh.... now I understand Tancredo better. Darn! I like that kind of fighting spirit. And it would cause a rift between him and the GOP club. An actual maverick.
Her one statement was "I am, you know, adamently against illegal immigration".
Well, who isn't? It is amazing that so many straw-graspers mis-construe this to mean that she wants to seal the border.
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"Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star", 149 May 7, 1918 |
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Q: Karl Rove, the White House strategist, got so mad over your immigration stance that you were told not to darken the White House door. What's your relationship like with the president these days?
A: My wife and I went to the holiday ball at the White House. No one dances at this ball, because there's no room, and you get stuck waiting in this line... Luckily, we were by the cocktails and the canapes. Finally we got into the room with the Christmas tree, and the president comes up to me and says, "Tommy, I tell you, buddy, thanks for all the help out there." And I'm thinking, "Help out there?" And I say, "Thanks -- anytime." And I realize later that he's talking about the fact that I was the Bush co-chair in Colorado, an honor I did not seek. That was the sum total of my communion with him.
Tancredo should get a words-smith on his staff.
How much more effective it would've been if he had said:
I believe Republicans are with me on the issue, and, sadly, many of the office holders they elected have ignored their concerns.
Reminding the people that invasion cheerleader Canon has won in a primary challenge while Tancredo hasn't faced one is not helpful.
There's some momentum now. Those supporting the invasion are going to try to snarl Tancredo up defending himself against petty challenges. He should go on the offensive and start calling it an INVASION. The powers to be would sound really stupid and insensitive if they tried to explain that it isn't an INVASION, crossing borders the administration doesn't even choose to defend.
Quite a few here would agree w/ Chris Cannon, unfortunately.
Tank speaks truth.
This could be because there are so many former 'Rats who abandoned their sinking ship over to the 'Pubbies over the past 10-15 years parroting themselves as a new brand of 'Conservative' and the new face of the Republican Party. Some people need to remember that if they abandoned their party once before they'll do it again when it's convenient to them thus RINO's cannot be trusted.
Hi Bob, IMO, looks like you like hillary ascribe to the josef goebbels schoool of propaganda, of tell a lie long eneough and people will beleive it.
Also see my tagline.
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