Tancredo to Announce Presidential Bid

WASHINGTON (AP) - Colorado Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo, an outspoken opponent of illegal immigration, will announce his bid for president on Monday.

Tancredo will kick off campaign with an announcement in Iowa, where political caucuses start whose the presidential nominating season, an official close to the congressman said.

Tancredo has flirted with a presidential bid for more than a year and began raising money for the effort in January. After taking in more than $1 million in two months, he has decided to make his run official, said the official, who asked not to be named ahead of Tancredo's official announcement.

Tancredo's office on Friday morning said that he will make a "major announcement" Monday on a Des Moines, Iowa, radio station.

Tancredo spokesman Carlos Espinosa would say only that Tancredo will announce his intentions and that his decision whether to run for president won't affect whether he will run again for his House seat.

Tancredo, a five-term House member who represents the Denver suburbs, is a leading supporter of securing the nation's Southern border with Mexico and cracking down on illegal immigration. He has used the issue to take on President Bush and Arizona Sen. John McCain, a leading contender for the GOP nomination.

Tancredo acknowledges that he is a long shot for president, but he has made no secret that he hopes to rattle McCain's campaign in Iowa by appealing to conservatives on immigration, abortion and other issues.

McCain last year co-sponsored a bill creating a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the country now, though he has played a smaller role in the issue this year.

Scott W. Johnson is a Minneapolis attorney. For more than ten years Johnson has written with his former law partner John H. Hinderaker on public policy issues including income inequality, income taxes, campaign finance reform, affirmative action, welfare reform, and race in the criminal justice system. Both Johnson and Hinderaker are fellows of the Claremont Institute. Their articles have appeared in National Review, The American Enterprise, American Experiment Quarterly, and newspapers from Florida to California. The Claremont Institute has archived many of their articles here.

Johnson lives with his family in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the University of Minnesota Law School.

On December 10, 2003, he posted a column at Power Line entitled "THE LIES OF GROVER NORQUIST". Here is a link to that column: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/005344.php. Below is a copy of part of that column:

Hugh [Hewitt] replayed his one-hour interview of Gaffney and Norquist on the show tonight and I took the opportunity to listen to it again. Having just reread the materials cited above, I was able to weigh the substance of Norquist's responses to Hugh's questions more carefully than the first time around. One particular exchange struck me as illustrative of Norquist's deceit and evasiveness.

Hugh asked Norquist to respond to the charge that an indicted (indicted as a bagman for Muhammar Khadaffy) Islamist -- Abdurahman Alamoudi -- had contributed $10,000 by personal check to help set up the Islamic Institute under Norquist's auspices. He stated that the check had been returned; he didn't say whether it had been cashed or when it had been returned. (In a footnote, Gaffney cites a source quoting Norquist's colleague Khaled Saffuri to the effect that the check was returned in October 2001.)

Norquist further stated that the institute was founded by Khaled Saffuri, as though that answered Hugh's question regarding Alamoudi's role in funding the institute. The institute is run by Saffuri, who, according to Gaffney, is one of Alamoudi's former deputies; Norquist never responded to Gaffney's charge that Saffuri is Alamoudi's former deputy. In other words, Norquist in effect conceded that Alamoudi in fact contributed substantial funds to Norquist's Islamic Institute and Norquist never disputed Gaffney's point about Saffuri's relationship to Alamoudi.

Norquist's themes are those of the Islamist apologist organizations like CAIR and the American Muslim Council: informed critics of Islamofascism and advocates of American interests like Daniel Pipes and Frank Gaffney are portrayed as bigots, and key law enforcement tools against domestic terrorism are alleged to be nefarious infringments of civil rights. When Norquist attempted to enlist James Woolsey to his cause on the latter score, Gaffney powerfully established that Norquist was all but lying.

Finally, except when attacking Gaffney personally, the tone of Norquist's remarks was insouciant and unserious. Norquist's response to the merits of Gaffney's charges was by turns evasive, deceitful, and flip. In defending himself from Gaffney's chages, Grover Norquist is an advocate with a fool for a client.

"The independants will pick the president..."

Step right up to the podium for your winning prize.

These days I think many of these swing voters are pretty sophisticated.

They are NOT idealogical. They will not be easily won, either.

Nov. 2006 was telling.
--I am sure many independents felt 4 yrs. was long enough for a war in Iraq.

--I am sure many independents realize the big budget deficits, and the earmarks, etc.

--I am sure many independents have developed a sense that Republicans have managed poorly. Military, Katrina, scandals, etc. A general feeling.

--I doubt that many of these independent voters are influenced by Dr. James Dobson, the Schiavo incident, etc.

Have you ever been to Miami? I have...I used to live in Florida. It is a Third World sh**hole, as is most of Jacksonville, and parts of Tampa and Orlando.

Does that make me a racist? Maybe to a judgmental elitist like you it does. But these towns are Third World sh**holes not because of the racial demographics, but because of the high-crime, high-poverty, hip-hop gangster mentality that has infected them.

I think the reason you really don't like Tancredo is that he doesn't have a lot of use for your beloved RNC and party apparatus. It's kind of like here in Idaho, where the state Pubbies refused to support US House candidate Bill Sali in the primaries, supporting a RINO name Sheila Sorenson instead. You see, she had been a leader in the legislature, a good party gal, so the party had no use for Sali when he called her out for voting against a constitutional amendment banning homosexual marriage. Bill Sali dared to rock the comfy Pubbie boat, and they did their best to see he wasn't nominated. Well, we riff raff out here, outside the hallowed halls of the Statehouse, not only nominated Sali, but overwhelmingly sent him to DC to replace Butch Otter.

Being as you're a party elitist, you really must hate hearing about the people flipping the bird to the party and doing things their own way. Like I said earlier...enjoy your last few years of relevance.

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

Gladly.

1) Smaller, less intrusive government. Under the RINO Bush administration we gotten ever larger, more intrusive government.
2) The family is the pillar of civilization. Under Romney's stalwart administration, Massachusetts gave legal recognition to homosexual marriages. Giuliani is a friend of the homosexual lobby, enjoying the support of the Log Cabin Republicans (barf!).
3) Strong national defense. Look at our damn borders and coastlines...'nuff said.
4) Steadfast support of the 2d Amendment. Bush said he would sign an extension of the so-called "assault weapon" ban. So has RINO Giuliani. McCommie has ceaselessly pushed for legislation closing the nonexistent "gun show loophole", and other anti-gun idiocy, enough to earn a solid F- from the Gun Owners of America.
5) American sovereignty above all else. SPP, the proposed NAU, the NAFTA Highway, cutting through your very state, the Dubai Ports World proposal, the proposed amnesty for illegal scumbag aliens plans that have been bandied about...I could go on.

That's just off the top of my head. Yeah, you got a little more that what you asked for...you wanted examples of core values, and I gave you that and examples of how the liberal RINO in the WH and his (your) liberal RINO party has violated them. Silly me...I always like to give people more than what they ask for.

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

On July 30, 2004, Michelle Malkin, posted an article on her blog entitled "WHAT SAY YOU NOW, GROVER NORQUIST?". Here is a link to that article: http://michellemalkin.com/archives/000318.htm.

Portions of that column are copied below:

The Washington Post reports that Abdurahman Alamoudi, once embraced as a "mainstream" and "moderate" Muslim activist who courted both the Clinton and Bush administrations, will plead guilty today to accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from Libya in violation of U.S. law and attempting to hide it from the government

...

His sympathy for Hamas was no secret. In 2000, independent terrorism investigator Rita Katz, Director of the SITE Institute, while working undercover, taped Alamoudi voicing his open support for the terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House. Alamoudi stated before an excited, cheering crowd:

"I have been labeled by the media in New York to be a supporter of Hamas...Anybody support Hamas here? Hear that, Bill Clinton? We are all supporters of Hamas. I wish they added that I am also a supporter of Hezballah...Does anybody support Hezballah here? I want you to send a message. It's an occupation, stupid...Hamas is fighting an occupation. It's a legal fight."
Despite this defiant public declaration of support for terrorists, Alamoudi was welcomed in GOP elite circles at the behest of power player Grover Norquist. Insight magazine reported:

Norquist was Alamoudi's most influential Washington facilitator, authorities believe, noting that Norquist reminds friend and foe alike that he is close to the president's powerful political strategist, Karl Rove.
Norquist, who previously has denied any suggestion that his work facilitated any wrongdoing, not only introduced Alamoudi to Washington GOP power circles but also Sammy Al Arian, whom prosecutors arrested earlier this year for alleged terrorist activities. Federal law-enforcement sources say they are focusing on some of Norquist's associates and financial ties to terrorist groups.

Alamoudi ran, directed, founded or funded at least 15 Muslim political-action and charitable groups that have taken over the public voice of Islamic Americans [see sidebar, p. 34]. Through a mix of civil-rights complaints, Old Left-style political coalitions and sheer persistence, Alamoudi helped inch the image of U.S.-based Islamists toward the political mainstream and induced politicians to embrace his organizations. He sought to secure the support first of the Clinton administration in seeking to repeal certain antiterrorist laws, but when Bill Clinton failed to deliver, Alamoudi defected to Bush, then governor of Texas. Alamoudi and other Muslim leaders met with Bush in Austin in July [2000], offering to support his bid for the White House in exchange for Bush's commitment to repeal certain antiterrorist laws.

That meeting, sources say, began a somewhat strained relationship between the self-appointed Muslim leaders and the Bush team. Some senior Bush advisers voiced caution to Rove, who is said to have disregarded such concerns, seeing instead an opportunity to bring another ethnic and religious group into the GOP big tent. A photo of the Austin event shows Bush with Alamoudi standing over his left shoulder, flanked by the former head of the Pakistani Communist Party, several open supporters of the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist groups and other individuals Insight is trying to identify.

Canceled checks obtained by Insight show Alamoudi provided seed money to start a GOP-oriented Muslim group called the Islamic Institute, which Norquist originally chaired and now is led by former Alamoudi aide and former AMC staffer Khaled Saffuri. A White House memo obtained by Insight prepared for coordinating Muslim and Arab-American "public-liaison" events with the White House shows that the Islamic Institute was instrumental in establishing the connection. The memo, from early 2001, provides lists of invitees and the name, date of birth and Social Security number of each. Norquist, as the first chairman of the Islamic Institute, tops the list.

Alamoudi and others, including Norquist, tried to keep critics at bay by branding them as "racists" and "bigots."

. . .

Norquist owes a public apology to fellow Republicans whom he has smeared as bigots for raising fundamental questions about Alamoudi and the Islamist-supporting apparatus in America. More importantly, Norquist owes answers about why he partnered with a known terrorist sympathizer, whether or not he now defends Alamoudi, when he plans to stop hiding behind the race card, and what exactly he plans to do to disavow Islamist influences.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.