Posted on 05/06/2005 7:47:06 AM PDT by .cnI redruM
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.
Wrong? He backstabbed Delay. It called a grandstanding personality in front of the liberal media cameras that tancredo relishes.
Tancredo sides with the Democrats, calling for DeLay to step down, he also attacks President Bush, practically called him a traitor in an article Tancredo wrote for the Los Angeles Times, but that's all just fine with some people.
But if someone points that out, like Cannon, then people attack him.
Read this to see how he is attacking the President.
TANCREDO: This Land Is Whose Land?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/1394585/posts
And here is Tancredo's statement about DeLay from his own website, he is still calling for him to step aside and delight the Democrats.
http://tancredo.house.gov/pressers/04.15.05%20Tancredo%20Statement%20on%20DeLay.htm
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I guess Tancredo thinks that the Democrats will be better to stem the flow of illegal immigration, the way he is helping them, by attacking Republicans.
So, what IS Tancredo's REAL AGENDA?
Who tried to cover anything up? While I think your characterization is an exageration, Tancredo did say DeLay might consider temporarily stepping aside. I don't agree with him about DeLay. I do agree with him about illegal immigration and closing or porous borders.
Fine I'll go to the ethics committee and say tancredo beats his wife, will he take his own advice and "temporarily" step aside.
No, I think you have him mixed up with McCain.
This is where Tancredo puts the knife in, right?
I believe they are being leveled in the hopes of bringing him down, and with him the Republican Majority
This must be where he turns the knife, right?
However, if the Majority Leader were to temporarily step aside so that these trumped up charges can be dealt with in a less hostile environment, as they have proven to be an unnecessary distraction, it may be a productive move
And this is where he sides with the Democrats, right?
I don't agree with Tancredo about DeLay, but it's hardly backstabbing.
JMO, both have the same grandstanding ways.
If it creates the same kind of environment that the DeLay situation created at the time Tancredo said it, then Tancredo would be a hypocrite not to "temporarily" step aside. Give it a go, take your wife-beating complaint to the ethics committee, and let's see what Tancredo does.
Really? tancredo saying Delay should step aside over trumped up charges is not backstabbing.
You want to buy a bridge to Brooklyn.
Uh sittin in the out house yonder there, tancredo with his backstabbing added to the liberal media enviromental frenzy.
No thanks, some of the terrorists who have come across the border might blow it up.
Why is that necessary? Why do you feel the need to attempt to insult me just because I disagree with you?
Well it looks like you at least considered the offer to buy the bridge.
Tancredo is doing the right thing. As a fellow Colorodan, as I look around my community, growing with Hispanic in an exponential manner, stiffer immigration policies are in order, indeed, needed.
I won't "practically" call Bush a traitor. He IS a traitor, for his calling the Minutemen vigilantes but especially his allowing and urging millions of illegals to swarm into the country. Add to this his promotion of "mental health screening" for all children in schools, and his overspending more than any U.S. President since Lyndon Johnson....
I don't know about Delay. If he's promoting illegal immigration or not. But Bush deserves to be tarred and feathered and impeached.
They also "Talk out of the left side of their mouths", these are the same people who told us not to be "One Issue" conservatives". Amazing how they forget that when the shoes on the other foot. It's been proven time and time again on these forums that most Pro-Illegals are not even American citizens.
What I am still trying to figure out though is why they are allowed to rant over and over again, most of the time off topic, and still not be banned like the rest of the folks.
Listening to the box set of michael savage(weiner) this morning?
You know, it's funny, these RINO Tancredo haters have done more to "backstab" Delay than Tom EVER has because they continue to distort his comments to make them sound more damning against Delay like the mainstream media wants. If they're looking for a way to damage Delay, they're doing an excellent job by repeating the mainstream media talking points.
What part of the word TEMPORARY don't the RINOs understand? Cheney was TEMPORARILY in charge of the White House when G.W. Bush was undergoing surgrey. That doesn't make Cheney commander-in-chief now!
These RINOs must be from the same school of media reporting that intrepted Henry Hyde's comments of "I can't that it wasn't" related to Nixon as somehow meaning that "Hyde says Clinton impeachment was PAYBACK for Nixon impeachment"
Yes, he serves a constituency that likes having a source of cheap illegal labor to keep it prosperous at least, filthy rich at best. Even if his rich mormon contributors don't hire illegals, they like owning businesses that can employ citizens for less then ten bucks an hour, because of illegals depressing wages in Utah.
Uh, in DC there is no such word as TEMPORARY, and you know that, but nice try in trying to deflect the obviousness of tancredo's ego of backstabbing.
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