Posted on 06/30/2004 9:38:32 PM PDT by Reagan Man
Colorado Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo is in big trouble with the GOP leadership. And just what, you may be wondering, is his great sin? "Team America," a political action committee originally founded by Tancredo, worked to unseat Representative Chris Cannon, a liberal Republican from Utah, by supporting Matthew Throckmorton, his challenger in the Republican primary.
Chief among those organizations caterwauling about the actions of Tancredo is the liberal "Tuesday Group," a coalition of approximately thirty liberal Republican House members whose goal is to steer the party to the left. Hiding under the cloak of a grossly distorted rendition of Ronald Reagan's "Eleventh Commandment" ("Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican"), the Tuesday Group is now expressing concern that party conservatives are finally making efforts to strike back.
Apparently, undermining the conservative agenda by abandoning the party at key junctures during the legislative process is perfectly fine with these Republican "centrists." But any discussion of such matters by conservatives, who have tired of seeing their party abandoning its principles, is strictly taboo. By such hypocritical assertions, these liberal "Trojan Horses" hope to continue dominating party politics from within.
Of course Ronald Reagan never intended for his "Eleventh Commandment" to be arbitrarily invoked as a means of allowing liberalism to spread, unchecked, within the ranks of the GOP. Rather, it was supposed to prevent the sort of backbiting and mud slinging within party ranks, which can ultimately undermine the credibility of the entire party.
House Majority leader Tom Delay, a longtime champion of conservatism, has found himself in the middle of this row. Seeking to maintain a cohesive Republican majority, he is promoting themes of "team spirit" and "comity" among party members. Delay even referenced Reagan's "Eleventh Commandment" in a meeting with Tancredo in which the Colorado Congressman was apparently warned to change his ways and endorse a unified party, or face retribution within Republican circles.
Unfortunately, such rhetoric fails to deal with the fact that it is the Republican liberals who regularly undermine party unity by voting with Democrats at critical junctures. With such people constantly placing the philosophies of liberalism ahead of traditional Republican principle, the only manner in which even a facade of "unity" can be maintained is for the entire party to shift to the left. This, of course, is precisely the strategy of the liberal Republicans.
Tancredo's major issue of concern is unchecked illegal immigration and the resulting compromise of America's borders. Hardly a miniscule "pet issue" of a fringe constituency, the immigration problem goes to the very core of maintaining America's national integrity and heritage. Little else of GOP principles or goals can be regarded as significant in any way, as long the party remains indifferent to the invasion of the nation's borders by a flood of illegal immigrants who, as soon as they are able to do so, will vote against such things. Yet, major forces within the GOP are once again actively working to insure that at best, the Republican counterpart to Democrat plans of opening the borders will only amount to a watered-down version of the very same thing.
By supporting truly conservative Republican challengers, Tancredo's PAC hopes to specifically target key players of the open borders advocacy for defeat during their respective state primaries. While it is not entirely clear whether or not Tancredo is still officially participating with the work of the PAC, his political ideology remains consistent with that of its members. Tancredo realizes that threats to the future of the nation are no less virulent when advanced by so-called "Republicans," than when spawned by their traditional advocates, the Democrats.
Tom Delay has, in the past, shown himself to be extremely principled, with the one notable exception being his support, under severe White House pressure, for an education bill that was essentially crafted by Ted Kennedy. He knows that if his party persists in its claims to uphold both high and low standards, only the low standards will prevail. Though presently striving to remain within the boundaries of party loyalty, he is surely aware that, as a principled conservative, his own future is no less threatened by the underhanded actions of the "moderates" than is Tancredo.
For Delay and Tancredo, whose differences are far outweighed by their political common ground, the most pressing matter is to maintain the party according to conservative principle rather than allowing the "centrists" to reinvent it in the image of the Democrats.
Toomey got a substantial majority of the vote in his last congressional bid, in a district that went for Gore by the same margin. If you go to the Pa. board, you will see heated agruements on how electing Hoeffel will be better in the long run because RINO Specter will be on the judiciary commitee. It is possible alot of Republicans won't vote for Specter and he will lose. Bush and Santorum pushed Specter over the edge, no doubt about it.
Fine, his district likes him. But that doesn't translate to the entire state liking him.
I'll grant that Bush is a better choice than Kerry on defense. However, that's damnation by faint praise.
I never said you said Kerry was better. You infered that Dubya was only marginally better than Kerry. I said that was rediculous.
All the issues I rebutted show that Dubya is moving the country to the right. Your response has been to ignore this progress and point out areas that haven't been fixed yet.
I'm not ignorant that there are still problems to deal with, but those problems didn't happen over night. In 1994 Republicans took back control of the House after 40 years of 'rat rule. The amount of time the 'rats held a majority in the Senate was nearly as long. The first 6 years of Republican rule were under Clinton. In 4 years Dubya has passed tax cuts, abortion restrictions, and fought 2 successful wars. His list of accomplishments is much longer and quite amazing concidering the fact that most of the first 2 years the Senate was controlled by the 'rats and the liberal news media is still quite powerful.
If my child gets an A on a math test I celebrate his success. In my shoes, I suspect you would scold him because he has not yet made the honor roll, or the varsity football team, and say something like "I had a job when I was 13."
He is a well spoken individual, I believe he would have gotten his message heard. And another thing, why are we so scared to take a chance? I was semi-liberal until I started listening to Rush. "Moderates" I know and talk to only regurgitate what they hear in sound bites and are generally malleable. This is why it's up to Bush if he wants to win this thing again. Sorry for the transition.
LOL! Interesting way to dismiss policy failures (CFR, PDP, Farm Bill, Education Bill)..."They haven't been made worse, they just, err, haven't been fixed yet."
Exactly. We're finally making progress rightward and certain "conservatives" want to sabotage it out of pure snit because they think it should be going faster.
Because the price tag for failure is guaranteeing that you get either a liberal Democrat or a RINO with a vendetta.
Two, actually.
But the ACU ratings Jim posted pretty much put the lie to the claims in this column.
When Tancredo started funding opposition to people he mostly agrees with, he demonstrated extremely poor judgement.
Wroooong. I missed nothing. The circumstances surrounding Chris Cannon and Tancredo's PAC, is only a small part of the entire article. If you read the article you would have understood that simple fact. Bottomline. The GOP leadership is pissed at Tancredo because he has the cojones to speak the truth in public and oppose amnesty for illegals. Some people want to ignore this issue and hope it goes away. Some people want to discredit those who stand firm on no amnesty for illegals.
Ignoring this critical issue of amnesty for illegals, only undermines the law of the land and the conservative agenda of the GOP.
Acrually, I had a job at 12 but that's neither here nor there.
Check this out.
Well there's you, for instance.
Lol! Great post.
The point is that the rats would be in a frenzy if he had done what most of us what have done confronting the rats and rinos...they would be in a feeding frenzy, and he would not have a chance.
Our Country is in deep kerry right now.
May God bless our President.
Thanks for letting everyone know what you are.
No doubt the republican party is moving leftwards just to stay in the game.
Keep it up and you will have 40% conservative minority while the dems put together a center left coalition that will destroy you, your values and this country totally.
The alternative is a center right coalition that will do a great if imperfect job.
In wall street, the bulls and bears make money while the pigs get slaughtered. You are a pig to be slaughtered. You are the purist A conservative only movement means LOSING EVERYTHING. Your path of purging the rinos is the one to destruction and I will oppose you at every turn and I am very conservative myself.
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