Posted on 11/18/2002 6:23:24 PM PST by Mark Felton
November 18, 2002
Target: Tom Tancredo
Some Say GOPPrimary Challenge Likely
By Josh Kurtz He represents one of the most conservative districts in the nation. He just trounced his Democratic challenger by 37 points. Yet Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) may be one of the most vulnerable incumbents in the 2004 election cycle.
Tancredo, a controversial, outspoken voice for the Republican right who is entering his third term, has angered leading Republicans back home and in the White House.
The House Member's criticisms of President Bush's immigration policy bought him a 40-minute rebuke earlier this year from Bush adviser Karl Rove, who, in the Congressman's own words, warned him "never to darken the door of the White House again." And his decision to renounce his pledge to serve only three terms has infuriated powerful Colorado Republicans, including his political patron, former Sen. Bill Armstrong (R).
"I'll be surprised if he doesn't have a primary [in 2004]," said Floyd Ciruli, an independent Colorado pollster.
Several Republicans, including popular state Treasurer Mike Coffman, who just won a landslide re-election of his own, are considering taking on Tancredo in the '04 primary.
Other potential candidates include state Sen. Jim Dyer (R) and former Arapahoe County Commissioner Steve Ward. "It's a given" that someone will run against the 56-year-old lawmaker, Coffman said. "There are questions about his term-limit pledge. When you have someone like Senator Armstrong, who was his mentor, backing away from him - I think that resonates."
Armstrong was instrumental in getting Tancredo elected in the first place, endorsing him over four strong opponents in a competitive GOP primary to replace retiring Rep. Dan Schaefer (R) in 1998. By Tancredo's reckoning, Armstrong's blessing was worth 3 points at the polls - which just happened to be his margin of victory in the primary.
Even though he may not seek re-election in 2004 - and would consider running for Senate if Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R) retires - he has chucked the term-limit promise nevertheless.
"The term-limit pledge in and of itself is not the deciding factor if he will run again," said Tancredo spokeswoman Lara Kennedy.
Like all Members who change their minds on term limits, Tancredo has cast his decision as being in the best interests of his district and pet causes. Tancredo wants to preserve his seniority for his suburban district south of Denver and angle for better committee assignments. Plus, he does not want to lose the momentum he has built fighting the government's open immigration policies, Kennedy said. Tancredo is the founder of the House Immigration Reform Caucus.
While plenty of politicians have broken their term-limit pledges before, including Rep. Scott McInnis (R-Colo.), Tancredo's decision is more noteworthy because he once headed Colorado's term-limit organization.
"All too often you have terrific candidates who come to Washington with the best of intentions, but they get too comfortable, and when the time comes, they don't want to go home," lamented Stacie Rumenap, a spokeswoman for U.S.Term Limits.
Whether Tancredo suffers any political damage remains to be seen. So far, the handful of Members who have broken their pledges, including McInnis, have not suffered any consequences at the polls, Rumenap conceded. And U.S.Term Limits is not in the business of recruiting challengers to incumbents who have broken the pledge.
Tancredo has promised to return campaign contributions to donors who are dismayed at his decision to ignore the term-limits pledge. But Armstrong - who did not respond to several messages left at his Denver law office - called the refund offer "hollow," according to The Rocky Mountain News.
Armstrong, meanwhile, has offered some kind words about Coffman.
"Mike Coffman is someone the Republican Party and the people of Colorado will rally around,"he told the News. "There is no doubt in my mind that he will be on the short list for whatever comes along - it could be governor, it could be Senator, it could be Congress."
Coffman, in fact, began running for Congress last year - in the new 7th district, which adjoins Tancredo's. But when the final district lines were drawn, Coffman found himself in Tancredo's 6th district, just a few blocks from the 7th, and chose not to move or run.
Coffman said that while he has not given much thought to the 2004 election yet, he believes that Tancredo will be vulnerable. The three Republicans most frequently mentioned as challengers are all military veterans, while Tancredo is not, and that could make a difference in a district that values military service, political insiders said.
Coffman, a 47-year-old Marine Corps vet who served in Operation Desert Storm, said Tancredo's military deferments during the Vietnam War would hurt him as America prepares to attack Iraq, and could be linked to his decision to ignore the term-limit pledge.
"Here's a guy ordering young men off to war and he himself didn't serve," he said. "I think in this conservative district, something like that could resonate."
Certainly, Tancredo's record would contrast with Coffman's, or Dyer's, who is an Air Force veteran, or Ward's, who is a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps Reserves and is on active duty in Florida.
Dyer called it "highly unlikely" that he would challenge Tancredo, but said somebody else might, and predicted that the term-limit issue would sting the incumbent.
"I think a number of people that support Tom are not going to support him if he breaks the term-limit pledge,"said Dyer, who was a surrogate for Tancredo at a candidate forum this fall. "We can't say that situational ethics is bad for party A but not for party B."
Ward, a former mayor of suburban Glendale, could not be reached for comment, but is expected to return to Colorado next year. In an interview with the News after completing his one term on the Arapahoe County Commission, Ward made his opinion of politicians who stay in office too long perfectly clear.
"Any politician who can't find the bathrooms in the first week doesn't deserve to be in public office," he said.
It is unclear whether the White House would try to get involved in a primary challenge to Tancredo.
But it is fair to say that Tancredo is not one of the president's favorite people. Earlier this year, the Congressman accused Bush of pandering to Hispanic voters and trying to prop up Mexican President Vicente Fox by offering amnesty to certain undocumented immigrants. That declaration brought an angry 40-minute phone call from Rove, and Bush pointedly failed to introduce Tancredo to the crowd during a political rally in Colorado in September.
With his hard-line views on immigration, Tancredo is no stranger to controversy. In 1999, he gained publicity for reaffirming his support for gun owners' rights just days after the massacre at Columbine High School, which is six blocks from his house.
The Southern Poverty Law Center released a report last summer linking Tancredo to extremist groups, which the Congressman dismissed as "McCarthyism."
And he was embarrassed earlier this year when it was revealed that undocumented workers had been hired to do some construction work on his Littleton home.
But pollster Ciruli said Tancredo's views on immigration are in line with his constituents'.
"Nobody who's going to argue the soft side of immigration is going to beat him in the Republican primary, or even in the general," he said.
After seeing two fairly viable opponents get wiped out by Tancredo in 1998 and 2000, Democrats appear to have abandoned the 6th district - leaving Republicans there to decide whether they want him to remain in office.
Sorry I just assumed you knew what we were talking about -
[You made a statement and I asked you to back it up. Can you?]
Here it is - now of course you can always say he made the decision on his own - Nothing whatsoever to do with the Muslim-Americans - he just was doing what was right. This is my basis for the statement and I personally think it supports what I said. Now of course, there is no way one could have had anything to do with the other - right? Now we all have to make up own minds with the facts we have.
"""[A representative of a Muslim-American civil rights group, which had stepped up calls for Bush to repudiate such remarks, welcomed Bush's words. "Obviously, we'd like to hear him repudiate these people by name, but we appreciate that he's moving in that direction," said Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). ] "It's encouraging to see that the president is finally addressing the issue of Islamophobia in America by addressing a specific attacks on Islam. This is a new stance, and it's one that we would encourage and support," Hooper said.]""""
No, of course, those stepped up calls had nothing to do with it and Powell's speaking to the Muslim leaders and promising to bring more into this country to be educated, etc. was just because it was the right thing to do - not that these people somehow seem to have a very direct pipeline to the presidency.
I don't know what the laws were, but the actual situation on the border did not bear that out. REmember this was the time we had the bracero program.
You may be saying anyone who qualified could receive citizenship - I also find that hard to believe. Why then would they have crossed the border illegally, if they could just immigrate legally, and believe me, they did swim the river. The Border Patrol was a very well staffed and formidable force during that time.
I am not denying you may have know the law - but it just doesn't fit into the way things were. Besides, if they could immigrate legally, why wasn't there the same huge migration. Many, many Americans of Mexican decent had families in Old Mexico (we called it), why wouldn't they have brought them here. There must have been more to it - I don't know.
Fair enough - now what part of your post was directed to me.
The economics were different. The US had a more rigid labor force, unions were stronger, the Hispanics did not have an established support network outside the Rio Grande and Los Angeles in the US like they do now, and they were not as upwardly mobile as now. It is the upwardly mobile, who have acquired certain basic skills, that emigrate. Subsistence illiterate farmers do not. Many Hispanic immigrants from Mexico now have college degrees, and most are literate. When you have a certain level of education, and a support network in the US, then the high wage differentials really precipitate mobility. I hope that helps.
The huge number is a big part of the problem - but the number is so huge - it needs more than slowing - it needs to go in reverse for about 10 years.
A large part of the problem is the fact these people receive all manner of freebies and pay little or no taxes. This is really and truly destroying this country. Property taxes are going out of sight to pay for their needs. The state of Texas is broke - hospitals are broke - the city of Dallas is broke.
Assimilation is part also - but only to the extent we Americans are forced to comply with their culture - not the other way around = and the cost for doing so. Just read a paper in any major city in Texas and see how many want only bilingual people. Of course, it will be good to learn Spanish (that is usually the cute retort by some), but why should an American, educated in an American school not be able to get a job he/she is otherwise qualified for just because he must be able to communicate with a group of people who are here illegally and do not know our language.
I have read several articles that refer to this as the largest human migration in history - think about it and we are supposed to absorb this. And do it while we have to take care of the many, many other problems we have. I have a real problem with it and I do not see an upside to it. It is great for politicans who can perhaps divide up the vote and get contributions from the greedy business owners, but it is bad, very bad for America and the American people.
Thanks for the answers and there are some good points in there.
The reality is, however, that while many coming here are very well educated. I have gotten grief when I posted that as a lot of supporters of illegal immigration have to maintain their idea of the poor, uneducated, downtrodden peon. You are right, except we are still getting the very uneducated. Children are coming who have never been to school and they might be 9 or 10 or older.
As for support- now, of course, they have our government and the various groups (LaRaza, etc.), but as for family or friends, they had many of those. Remember this was once part of Mexico. Parts of the border towns in Texas looked just like Old Mexico (now a lot of Texas looks like Old Mexico), but knowing them as I did and do, I don't see that as a factor. The Mexicans have always come across to work, bringing families and staying for months or a year or two, then returning. Many times, these people came from deep in the interior. We still get a lot of those - my husband always has just a little difficulty communicating with them as their language is a mixture of Indian and Mexican.
I don't know the reason, but while it may be true there was no official limit - I just believe there was in fact some limitation on numbers, or there would have been many more as the ones I met over the years did want to come.
Thanks for taking the time to answer - there are some points to ponder.
I really didn't understand the reason for the posting of the article, although I did find it interesting.
Don't know what your 'happy-story nonsense' referenced - because I see nothing happy about our situation.
I think its evident, nothing will please them.
Hell that's obvious.
Mexico wasn't as corrupt and hopeless then. Most Mexicans used to prefer to stay in Mexico, even today most would prefer to stay in their own lands but they've given up for the most part. They see no future there --and really there doesn't seem to be any. Mexico is falling apart --the crime rate has escalated drastically in the past 20 years, it used to be safe to travel almost anywhere in that country.
I thought you were a bullfighter, or as we use to say, many years ago, a real shitkicker! =^)
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