GOP targets Tancredo

Newsmax.com ^ | 11-19-02 | Carl Limbacher

[nonliberal]

GOP Targets Pro-borders Tancredo

Rep. Tom Tancredo, the nation's most outspoken opponent of the invasion of illegal aliens, is being targeted for defeat - not by the Democrats, but by the GOP establishment.

Just last week Tancredo, R-Colo., crushed his Democrat challenger by 37 points. But the moderates and liberals see him as a conservative loose cannon packed with ammo.

His "criticisms of President Bush's immigration policy bought him a 40-minute rebuke earlier this year from Bush adviser Karl Rove, who, in the Congressman's own words, warned him 'never to darken the door of the White House again,'" Roll Call reported Monday.

"I'll be surprised if he doesn't have a primary" in 2004, said Floyd Ciruli, an independent Colorado pollster. "It's a given."

Possible Republican rivals in '04 include popular state Treasurer Mike Coffman, state Sen. Jim Dyer and former Arapahoe County Commissioner Steve Ward. Democrats have given up on the conservative district south of Denver.

Tancredo's other capital crime, in addition to urging that the U.S. actually maintain its borders, is violating his pledge to serve only three terms. (Note that Democrats didn't raise a fit - publicly, at least - when the late Sen. Paul Wellstone made the mistake of breaking his word not to run again.)

Roll Call says "Tancredo is not one of the president's favorite people. Earlier this year, the Congressman accused Bush of pandering to Hispanic voters and trying to prop up Mexican President Vicente Fox by offering amnesty to certain undocumented immigrants. That declaration brought an angry 40-minute phone call from Rove, and Bush pointedly failed to introduce Tancredo to the crowd during a political rally in Colorado in September."

Ciruli said Tancredo's views on immigration were in line with his constituents'.

"Nobody who's going to argue the soft side of immigration is going to beat him in the Republican primary, or even in the general," he said.

Oops: Tancredo, founder of the House Immigration Reform Caucus, was embarrassed earlier this year when it was revealed that a house contractor he had hired employed illegal aliens, Roll Call reported.

But as the congressman said at the time: "I hired a reputable company, I did not hire the labor. It is the government's responsibility to enforce our immigration laws, and if the INS were doing its job, no illegal immigrant would be available to violate our labor laws."

[PuNcH]

I would like Bush to come out and tell us whether he thinks Tancredo should be a representative of the GOP as you suggest or a representative of those who elected him.

[nonliberal]

You! Drink the Kool-Aid!

[JoeMomma]

Tom Tancredo for President!
De-elect that RINO George W. Bush in '04!