Tancredo rips Palin: Not 'presidential,' just selling books

The Hill ^ | 03/01/10 | Eric Zimmermann

[Sub-Driver]

Tancredo rips Palin: Not 'presidential,' just selling books By Eric Zimmermann - 03/01/10 12:09 PM ET

Former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) ripped into fellow Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin in a recent interview, saying she's not "presidential" and accusing her of simply trying to sell books.

In an interview published yesterday (via GOP 12) Tancredo said he can't see Palin as commander in chief.

"I really don’t have this feeling about her as being presidential," he said. "I don’t know what it is exactly. I don’t know if the issues really are that difficult for her or not.”

Tancredo said Palin doesn't seem to be attempting to improve as a candidate and suggested that her goal seems to be to "make a lot of money and stay in the mix."

Tancredo said he's particularly upset that Palin will campaign for John McCain in his primary against J.D. Hayworth, a Tancredo ally:

She has to do this to rise in the party ranks?

“I think so.’’

So she is just as much an unprincipled politician as all the rest of them?

“To a large extent.’’

And you still love her?

“I didn’t say that!’’

Well, in your Tea Party speech you pointed out that she could finally say all those wonderful things now she’s free from McCain.

“I said: ‘Now she can tell it like it is.’ And she chooses not to.’’

But Tancredo saved his heaviest fire for McCain, whom Tancredo has long disagreed with on immigration reform, among other things.

“I don’t like him," Tancredo said flatly. "He is not a very pleasant person. He is nasty, mean; the skin of an onion would look deep compared to his. He has a short fuse, he is almost peculiarly unstable.”

[pgkdan]

LOL...nice talking points. Reagan ran for higher office, a common practice. Governors don't throw their hands up and quit like Palin did unless they're on their way to prison.

When Palin did resign she promised to spend he3r time in the lower 48 working to elect conservatives wherever she could. The she endorsed McCain. As far as I'm concerned all bets are now off.

Picking Schweiker was an uncharacterically bone headed move. Nobody's perfect.

[EyeGuy]

I was not aware of any of that-some very good information and great news!

Thanks for the education. Much appreciated.

[pissant]

You might want to mention that Hunter withdrew from the race 3 weeks before the CA primary

[Al B.]

Picking Schweiker was an uncharacterically bone headed move.

Campaigning for Chuck Percy in 1978 wasn't real bright, either, particularly in light of Percy's support of the Panama Canal Treaty which Reagan detested.

You're right. Nobody's perfect.

[Solitar]

As if Tancredo knows what it takes to be Presidential.

[ansel12]

How many Governors from Alaska or Hawaii have confronted and fought the worst media attacks that we have ever seen and managed to maintain a top position for leadership of the party and the Presidential nomination, from the isolation and distance of those states?

Palin took a shattered and demoralized conservative movement and inspired and led it to the dominant political force in America in a single year.

[Reagan Man]

>>>>>Ronald Reagan, who "was elected (governor)for a 4 year term", ran for president after two years.

There is a big difference between Palin quitting her position as Alaska Governor, to Reagan running as a favorite son in 1968. Truth is, the two situations are entirely different. Reagan never quit. Besides, Palin has not announced her intentions for 2012 and this constant comparison of Palin to Reagan, does Palin a disservice. Let Palin be Palin and let the cards fall where they may.

Read the following cut from Reagan's autobiography, "An American Life" and pay close attention to the final two sentences.

"Then early in 1968, several leaders of the state Republican party came to see me and said they wanted me to run for the Republican presidential nomination on the California primary ballot the following June as a favorite-son candidate. If I did, he said the party could avert a repeat of the kind of bloody battle between moderates and conservatives that split the party so badly in 1964. I agreed with them that there were still lots of hard feelings left over from the Goldwater-Rockefeller primary fight and that a heated primary race between the three major candidates in 1968 - Richard Nixon, Nelson Rockefeller, and George Romney - would probably reopen the wounds. But running for president was the last thing on my mind. I'd been governor for less than two years and I said it would look ridiculous if I ran for president. But they countered: "A favorite-son candidate is not the same thing as a real candidate. If you enter the primary as a favorite son, the major candidates won't enter the race, so we'll avoid a disastrous primary fight; as governor, you'll win the primary, but that only means you'll head the delegation to the convention."

"Okay," I said, "I'll do that, I'll enter my name as a favorite son, but that's all, and only on one condition: that our delegation be representative of all sides in this split, not just one group." They promised to balance the delegation - and they did.

By the time the convention opened in Miami Beach in early August, George Romney had lost his initial momentum and the race had boiled down to a battle between Rockefeller and Nixon, who was completing his great political comeback after the defeats of 1960 and 1962. When I arrived at the convention, I was surprised to learn quite a few delegates had pledged their support to me, but I continued to tell them I wasn't a candidate and didn't want it. But they'd just go away and say I was a candidate. Well, when the balloting took place, I got a sizable number of votes behind Nixon and Rockefeller, but Nixon had the clear majority and so I ran up to the front of the hall and jumped on the platform and asked the chairman for permission to address the convention.

At first, I was turned down because of a procedural rule, but after a minute they agreed to waive the rule and let me speak and I made a motion that the delegates nominate Richard Nixon by acclamation and they did so with a tremendous roar. Because I consented to be a favorite-son candidate that year, some people have suggested that I was bitten by the presidential "bug" back in 1968. But it wasn't true. When Nixon was nominated, I was the most relieved person in the world. I knew I wasn't ready to be president. I knew there was still lots of work to be done in Sacramento."

[Windflier]

Picking Schweiker was an uncharacterically bone headed move. Nobody's perfect.

Let's not forget that Reagan also picked the establishment, Eastern blue-blood Republican, GHW Bush to be his VP in 1980. He then erred by trusting the Democrats when he signed the '86 amnesty bill (they stabbed him in the back).

He had to make tough, politically pragmatic choices just like any other politician.

The thing about Reagan that most of us love and appreciate isn't that he was "perfect", but that he never vacillated or swerved from aiming toward his conservative goals for the country.

Sarah Palin shares that excellent character trait with Ronaldus Magnus.

[McGruff]

And how much executive experience does Mr. Tancredo have?

[The Old Hoosier]

Not selling books?

[McGruff]

Tancredo Endorsement a Boost to Romney on Key Issue of Immigration

Rep. Tom Tancredo (Colo.) today ended his long-shot bid for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination and threw his support to Mitt Romney.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/eye-on-2008/tancredo-bows-to-the-inevitabl.html

[RichInOC]

A couple of notes:

First, my impression is that as presidential material, Congressman Tancredo would make a fine SecDHS.

Second, again, my impression is that the congressman is a bit of a crusty old fart himself.

[Windflier]

The “quitter” label won’t stick to Palin, as long as you’re factoring in the actual facts that led to her resignation.

If you’re not, then you’re just buying into the leftstream media’s spin on it, or have ulterior motives for continuing to put that label on her.

[Mr. K]

Remember Reagan’s First Comandment: “Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican”

a$$hol Tancredo...

[Servant of the Cross]

The “quitter” label won’t stick to Palin, as long as you’re factoring in the actual facts that led to her resignation.

Exactly right. It completely ignores how the goofy Alaskan rules allowed marxist wingnuts to continue to batter the Governor with bogus complaints that distracted a large amount of staff time. It was counter-productive for Alaska. She had a strong Lt. Governor and she had already accomplished much that he could finish.

Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell's Statement on Palin's Resignation

Governor Sarah Palin leaving the microphone after announcing her retirement. It was claimed that she said, "I'm not retreating, I'm just attacking in a different direction." This is the face of a lady who means business and is going places. To those who suggest I quit?! I fart in your general direction. [it could not be confirmed whether she said this or not].

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Don't forget he challenged the sitting Republican President in 1976.

Are you referring to Gerald "Pardongate" Ford?

[misharu]

I’m right there with you, my brother.

[TexanByBirth]

He’s just another politician, like everyone else.

Yep, that's my take on this too. Tancredo is just another self-centered politician screaming "look at me"!

[Windflier]

It completely ignores how the goofy Alaskan rules allowed marxist wingnuts to continue to batter the Governor with bogus complaints that distracted a large amount of staff time. It was counter-productive for Alaska.

Not only were her staff tied up with dealing with all of the calculated legal assaults against her, those attacks were literally bankrupting her family, and making it impossible for her to actually perform her duties as Governor.

It makes me nuts to watch the "quitter" theory continually advanced on this website. It was thoroughly debunked at the very outset, yet it persists among a segment of the public who (of all people) should really know better.

The most delicious irony in all of this, are the unintended consequences involved. Had the Democrat operatives simply left Governor Palin alone, she'd still be far away in Alaska, doing her job, and not in the lower 48, being the leading crusader against Obama's Socialist agenda.

They thought that they'd destroy her, but all they did was to make her much bigger, and a thousand times more visible and relevant.

[Reagan Man]

LOL Don't be so touchy. Whether you call it quit or resign, the outcome is the same.

My major objective is to see a conservative win the GOP nomination for 2012. That means NO Romney, NO Huckabee, NO Giuliani -— NO RudyMcRombee's, PERIOD! And NO Ron Paul either.

The way it looks now, if Palin decides to run, she'll get my support and my vote in the primary and the general. I don't how to be anymore clear then that.