Posted on 11/22/2005 12:28:26 PM PST by Icelander
WASHINGTON - As Republicans look to the 2008 primaries in search of a candidate whose credentials and personality can triumph over Senator Clinton, one potential candidate has no expectation of winning on the basis of his personality or record - or of winning at all, for that matter. Instead, Rep. Thomas Tancredo, a Republican of Colorado, is hoping that his participation in Iowa's caucuses and early primaries will bring a victory for his signature issue: immigration reform.
He isn't waiting until 2008. Mr. Tancredo, 59, who has earned a national reputation for being an advocate for stricter border controls on Capitol Hill, has yet to make a firm declaration of his candidacy. But he is already making campaign stops from coast to coast and writing a book about immigration, tentatively titled "In Mortal Danger." It could serve as Mr. Tancredo's campaign platform and will be available in June, the congressman told The New York Sun yesterday.
In addition to laying the groundwork for his own bid, Mr. Tancredo is headlining campaign events for others who share his immigration philosophy. Reached yesterday by phone in Orange County, Calif., Mr. Tancredo was campaigning for the founder of the Minuteman Project, James Gilchrist, who is running for the congressional seat vacated by the new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Christopher Cox.
Mr. Tancredo has also visited New Hampshire and South Carolina. Bay Buchanan, who is the sister and adviser of another opponent of illegal immigration and former presidential candidate, Patrick Buchanan, has helped Mr. Tancredo make contacts in such early primary states, the congressman said. This weekend, Mr. Tancredo was in Alta, Iowa, on his fourth visit to the crucial caucus state in the last six months.
Mr. Tancredo has said that he will throw his hat into the Iowa ring if no other Republican emerges who will "include immigration in their platform ... and do so with some degree of vigor, "the congressman said yesterday. So far, Mr. Tancredo said a former speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich - who wrote in a recent report for the Center for Immigration Studies that immigrants' dual citizenship posed an "insidious challenge" - has come the closest to being satisfactorily strong on the issue.
Yet Mr. Tancredo appears to enjoy some advantages Mr. Gingrich and his likely 2008 competitors do not, principally the support of an influential Iowa Republican, Rep. Steven King. Mr. King is one of 91 members of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, of which Mr. Tancredo is founder and chairman.
"Tom Tancredo needs to keep coming to Iowa," Mr. King said. "I want him on the stage in this debate."
Messrs. Tancredo and King, and the executive director of the Iowa Republican Party, Cullen Sheehan, indicated yesterday that Mr. Tancredo will have a natural base of support among 2008 caucus-goers.
While Iowa is further removed from the issue of illegal immigration than border states such as California and Arizona, Mr. Tancredo said, it has been surprisingly receptive to his message of ending illegal immigration and reducing the number of legal migrants permitted to enter the country. His Iowa audiences, the congressman said, "are as concerned about it as any group I've ever spoken to in Arizona."
Mr. Sheehan said that illegal immigration is a matter of importance to Iowa's caucus-goers, saying that most "want people to obey the law, and they want our government to uphold the laws we have." Mr. King said jobs in the agricultural industry were also a factor, citing as an example the Farmland Foods packing plant in Dennison, Iowa. Ten years ago, Mr. King said, eight Hispanics worked at the facility compared to 850 today.
Iowans, however, are focused mostly on national security: "How can a nation have a border they don't defend?" Mr. King said. "If it's not really a border, then you're not really a nation."
Mr. King said he also anticipated Mr. Tancredo's message to resonate with caucus-goers because of his focus on the cultural effects of massive immigration. Mr. Tancredo said that today's immigrants decline to become Americans, leading to a "balkanized" society. Immigration, Mr. Tancredo said, fuels and reinforces the divisive multiculturalist ideologies propagated by American elites in academia, the press, and politics.
In fact, it was outrage at multiculturalism in American schools that first brought Mr. Tancredo's attention to immigration. The congressman is a former junior high school teacher, and the schools' insistence on bilingual education and hostility toward America in textbooks and classrooms, combined with his reading of Arthur Schlesinger's "The Disuniting of America" in 1992, served as his road-to-Damascus moment on the need for immigration reform, Mr. Tancredo said.
Mr. Tancredo, a Denver native, left teaching to take a seat in Colorado's House of Representatives in 1976, and later served in the federal Department of Education under Presidents Reagan and Bush. In 1998, Mr. Tancredo was elected to Congress.
After founding the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus in 1999, Mr. King said, Mr. Tancredo's "credibility is going up as the American public puts pressure on other members of Congress" on the matter of border security. When Mr. Tancredo first introduced amendments to restrict immigration, Mr. King said, the measures would receive 20 to 25 votes. "Three years ago, that same amendment got 60 to 70 votes. Now, that same amendment will get 100 or 110."
If Mr. Tancredo's star is rising among American voters and in the House, he may not be winning friends in the circles of Republican leadership.
The editor of RealClearPolitics.com, John McIntyre, said yesterday that Mr. Tancredo's candidacy poses "a real problem" for the GOP in 2008.
While the Colorado congressman's message might win votes as a hot-button issue in 2008 and 2012, Mr. McIntyre said, demographic trends suggested the position might prove electoral poison in 2016 and beyond as the American electorate becomes increasingly Hispanic, and if the Tancredo platform paints national Republicans as "anti-immigrant."
For Republicans to succeed in quieting Mr. Tancredo, satisfying the base's yearning for a serious immigration policy, and to avoid being tarred as nativist, it would be necessary for the GOP to nominate a popular candidate with a reputation for being a moderate-such as Senator McCain, of Arizona, or Mayor Giuliani - who would then embrace the issue in the 2008 campaign.
Or voting third party.
Actually, you are mentally deficient because my whole point was that you SHOULD vote for a real conservative in the primary over a RINO, but that you should not go the third party route in the general election.
You are a first class nut job. You didn't even read what was written and instead just responded with vitriol.
How is the suspension on the short bus?
Nice Vince McMahon reference, BTW (testicular fortitude). Now there's a model of morality and business policy.
Seriously, Tancredo knows his own limitations and is using his talents and clout the best way he can. Put your vehemance for me aside for a moment and listen: I got an inadvertant one-on-one opportunity to speak with the guy April of last year and asked as many relevant questions I could.
Run for the Presidency? Not if he could help it but if no other candidates address the invasion issue seriously he would do it.
Why so hesitant? He's recieved a lot of threats toward himself and his family and is caught between his concern for them and what's right to do. He was REALLY angry at the threats and said he knows those people are never defeated by caving into their pressure. I said it proves he's on the right track. He said that's true but wouldn't wish it on anyone else.
He also talked about how he was initially inspired by John F. Kennedy's call to service like so many of his generation but found learning more lead him to Republicanism (to the point where he was castigated for his position in Catholic school). He went on to become a teacher himself but reluctantly succumbed to everyone around him urging him to run for office.
Tom went into that with every intention of getting out ASAP but found himself offended by the "play ball and you'll be taken care of" game that's entrenched on the Hill. He said he felt he would betray his constiuency more by ditching (as he initially promised) after learning that he had to hang on to see his interests perpetuated.
While it's never reported on Mr. Tancredo is glued to any legislation concerning education, seeing this as our nation's ultimate edge on the rest of the world. He's also concerned with the Islamist's attempt to influence textbooks and programs through their limitless financial influence.
No, I think the man's in touch with the pulse of what's really happening. Despite being somewhat short and bug-eyed I'd trust this guy with the Presidency without hesitation. He's a commoner, respects his nation and displays his love for it through his actions and, for anyone willing to talk to him, on his sleeve. Tom Tancredo is a patriot who said we should value every individual on their worth over preconceptions as that practice has already been mastered by the Democrats (touche'!). After all that the man wouldn't even let me pay for the drinks, carefully writing down the expense in an obviously well-worn ledger. When I drank with Tip O'Neil that grand master of blarney wondered why I didn't want to pick up his bill (er, because he's Tip O'Neil- Notorious Human Alcohol Sponge?).
BTW - Tancredo cut himself off at three citing that he had to be clear for his nightly call to his wife and family. He made it quite plain that no matter what comes up in political life his family takes precedence.
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