But immigration was the issue of passion Saturday, and Kaloogian was the candidate capturing it at his rally with Tancredo in a crowded white tent outside the convention hotel near San Francisco Airport. Next to the stage, two boys wearing Kaloogian T-shirts carried posters reading, "No Terrorist Driver's License." The signs showed a driver's license bearing a photo of Osama bin Laden. Tancredo, who flew in from Colorado for the rally, said that America had taken "rabid, overstated multiculturalism" too far.
"People are still coming across our borders with the intent to do terrible things to us," he told the cheering crowd. He called Bush's proposal "lousy, lousy policy."
Gloria Irwin, the Glenn County Republican Party chairwoman, said she agreed that Bush's plan was "terrible."
"The main street in our little town looks like Tijuana," said Irwin, whose hometown, Orland, is 100 miles north of Sacramento.
As for Schwarzenegger's stand on driver's licenses, she said, "He's going along to get along, and that's not a good thing. I wish he would get a little more backbone."
Saturday morning, Senate candidate Howard Kaloogian led several hundred people in a boisterous rally against illegal immigration, including proposals to grant driver's
licenses to illegal immigrants in California and President Bush's plan to give legal status to millions of undocumented workers.
"We are a nation of laws and that starts at the border. ...I don't understand how you compromise. They either have a driver's license or they don't; they are either here illegally or they are not," Kaloogian said.
While Schwarzenegger has signaled a willingness to consider ways for illegally immigrants to obtain licenses, one GOP legislative leader says he faces a tough sell.
"I think the governor will have to talk to many of us in the Republican Party for us to move on this," said Assembly Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy. "I do not see ... a bill out there that we support or a concept that we support."