Two schools of thought on that:
1) Tancredo was honoring his off-the-cuff World Series Wager (Tom's nothing if not honorable).
2) Bay Buchanan has strong Mormon ties, and was whispering Mitt's name in his ear.
Sorry to break this to you, but Mittens' current border stance is GHWB-style lip-service. For one thing, Mitt has family ties to Mexico. He's also very much in the pocket of the Rockefeller set. They're not about to give up their illegal labor.
He'll do exactly what Bush did about the border. He'll pretend to do nothing. Meanwhile, he'll stack the DOJ & DHS with pro-illegal activists (with marching orders to run-off anybody who tries to do something about it).
When/if we raise a fit, there will be a McCain Kennedy 'comprehensive reform' scare to shut us back up.
As for financial conservatism, he'll pass a couple skin-deep tax cuts and call it a 'stimulus package'.
Here's what else he'll do:
He'll pass numerous socialist mandates, then levy mandatory 'fees' to pay for them (neatly avoiding the 'tax' semantic with a bit of Huck/Clinton rhetoric). The net effect of this will be an increase in government intrusion AND across-the-board costs. The sheeple will think they're getting something for nothing (All hail the State!). Really we'll all end up paying about double what we were before for healthcare and (wrongly this time) blame the tort lawyers for it.
At Mitt's core, he doesn't really believe Marxism can accomplish any good in the world. He's only using it as a means to consolidate power and influence (all he really cares about IMHO). Socialism is great for consolidating power, and it usually works out great financially for the ruling class and their cronies. It's very, VERY bad for everyone else.
Anyone accusing Huck of using the Clinton playbook is right, but they're mistaken if they don't believe Mitt is as well.
All of the above, of course, would be on the outside chance that Mitt could take out Hillary. Not likely, IMHO. He'd be trying to out-Marxist the genuine article.
There’s just one little problem with all of that.
If Mitt were really the person you describe, the media would love him.