IowaPolitics.com: Tancredo Surprises Hunter by Backing Romney

Iowa Politics.com ^ | 12/20/07 | Chris Dorsey

[pissant]

DES MOINES -- Congressman Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., ended his bid for the presidency just two weeks before the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses Thursday, handing fellow Congressman Duncan Hunter a loss and giving Mitt Romney a gain.

Tancredo announced Thursday afternoon what many speculated -- he's stopping his efforts to seek the Oval Office.

Tancredo then endorsed Republican Romney.

"Congressman Tancredo ran a spirited campaign focused on issues that are important to many Americans," Romney said. "I thank him for his support. While we don’t agree on every issue, we agree on the need to keep America strong. I look forward to working with him and other Republicans to achieve that end."

That move surprised many Republican insiders, who thought the congressman might swing his support to Fred Thompson. Thompson was endorsed Monday by Iowa Congressman Steve King, a close friend of Tancredo's. King also weighed in on Tancredo's decision, and praised his efforts in moving the illegal immigration debate.

"The measure of his success is in the platforms of every Republican candidate and even in that of the Democrats," King said. "No candidate has had so profound an effect on any public policy of America. Every Republican has taken the no amnesty pledge and adopted a tough-on-illegal-immigration stance. Tom Tancredo has been so successful that much his political capital has been co-opted by his opponents."

However, Hunter may have been surprised about the Romney endorsement. Just two hours earlier at an IowaPolitics.com-Drake University forum in Des Moines, Hunter's Iowa campaign director Greg Grant said Tancredo had a gentleman's agreement with the fellow congressman.

"I believe his departure will benefit Duncan Hunter the most," Grant said a couple hours before the Tancredo announcement. "Duncan and Congressman Tancredo had a gentlemen's agreement if one of them backed out they would support the one that is still in the race. When you look at Tancredo's objective as far as immigration, Duncan is right in line with Tom Tancredo's issue."

Tancredo has been very critical of the Republican's stance on illegal immigration and said it was a driving factor why he entered the race.

"For the past 10 years I have dedicated my public life to the critical issue of illegal immigration," Tancredo said. "I believed then –as I do now—that massive uncontrolled illegal immigration threatens our survival as a nation. I could not stand by and let open border politicians and corporate lobbyists sell our country out to the highest bidder. Then earlier this year when I feared that the issue would not be championed by any of the top candidates I threw my hat in the ring. It was the only way I could be certain that the candidates would be forced to take a stand."

Tancredo has been very critical of national frontrunner Rudy Giuliani about his stance on illegal immigration. Romney has also criticized the former mayor for allowing New York to be a "sanctuary city."

There was a sense Nov. 13 that Tancredo saw his campaign sinking as he acknowledged he likely wouldn't be elected president. He said Grover Cleveland was the last member of the U.S. House to be elected president.

With the Iowa caucuses just 14 days out, many were curious why Tancredo would pull the plug on his campaign unless he could shape the outcome of the caucus. Romney and Huckabee are locked in a tight battle for the Jan. 3 title, and one Republican insider thinks that endorsement could make a difference with Tancredo supporters who closely follow the immigration issue.

[Vision]

Tancredo allows a gentlemen’s agreement to rule over the issue of his one issue candidacy?

The guy's a nut.

[donna]

Choose wisely:

Excerpt:
Now, here is where my plea for Mormons to simply tell the truth comes in. This is America. You can believe anything you want.

If you want to believe that God was once a human being, that Jesus was his physical son, that you can become a God yourself, that Jesus and Satan were brothers, you can certainly do so.

But tell the truth! If you believe it, be proud of it—don’t try to hide it.

Source

[rockrr]

I’ve resolved myself over the course of the last few weeks that (at least as far as my intentions) there won’t be a consideration “after” Fred or Duncan. If “our side” can’t muster enough moral and intellectual honesty to promote a conservative candidate, then we as a country get who we deserve.

I will be casting my vote for Mr. Thompson, even if it’s as a write-in...

[fieldmarshaldj]

Romney’s a liberal !

Romney’s a liar !

Romney’s a fraud !

You know it, and I know it.

(Repeated for your pleasure because you can’t disprove a word). :-)

[fieldmarshaldj]

"Romney buried MA GOP."

Dead and buried.

[NewRomeTacitus]

After watching Romney flip-flop for an hour over his defense of flip-flopping I started to get hungry for some fish.

And then I saw Thompson walking around Iowa telling people that he’s not about fulfilling their fantasies and not about making promises he can’t keep. He’s about having set values and abiding by them. Much of the perceived weakness of his Senatorial sit was, in my estimation, his refusal to deal, compromise values and “play the game”. If I recall his disgust for the entrenched system and how it tired him was why he left it.

Romney would be “Bush III”, Huckabee would eventually be be beat down by the Dems over religion (and being weak)...the presses preferred candidate against Hillary or Obama. Hunter’s nads scare those who don’t have any and McCain is 2007’s Bob Dole.

Thanks for your posts here. I haven’t laughed that hard in some time. The government really should tap you for analysis...they surely aren’t getting good info from the people they’re using.

[fieldmarshaldj]

How 'bout some catfish, our unequaled Southern delicacy ? And we can't forget the tartar sauce. Sacrilege not to serve it with. ;-)

But seriously, I think DC just couldn't handle Fred and the change he'd bring (but he's the gigantic enema that town has needed since Reagan departed). He truly got fed up with the bull$hit there and could feel it trying to feed on his soul before his 8 years in the Senate concluded. I'm amazed he'd consent to want to go back there, but we know now, at least us honest folks, that he's not doing it for ego or over some crazy obsession stemming from the fact that daddy was denied the job, but because he gives a damn about his kids and the world they stand to inherit.

I doubt the government would want me, either. They seem content to employ those that want to keep things exactly as they are, with the lies, the nonsense and the garbage they spin like spiders, growing ever so much larger by the day, until they trap us all within it and eventually kill this grand American experiment in republican democracy.

Of course, Jefferson was ultimately correct that the tree of liberty must be replenished from time to time with the blood of patriots... and that of tyrants. I just don't want that tyrant to come from our party, which it may cease to be by February... :-\

[NewRomeTacitus]

Outstanding - and pass the lemon wedges too.

YES I think Fred got a second wind from looking at the world his blessed second family would inherit. Nothing else explains it after he’s already achieved financial security, a respectable legislative legacy, a critically acclaimed acting career embarked upon as a hoot. Fred may be the only candidate free of the hard knuckle of overt powers (corruption).

I’d vote for him for that alone. Mr. Smith has GOT to go to Washington before that city drowns in corruptive influences and drags the rest of us down with it.