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.
Absolutely. And if my faith has been misplaced and I am wrong about the direction I think GW will steer us, then I will be confessing my sins at that time. But I am realistic about how long it willl take to reverse the past 30 years worth of policies wrt immigration. It won't happen overnight.
Not too long ago, I think Mexico was a safer country than the US except for a couple of states. Cities like Ciudad Juarez were relatively safe but Mexico has become the major drug dealing country in the world and so much migration to the US has also left it very unstable and getting worse. Massive migration isn't healthy --not for us and not for them, it's leaving them without the same people that could make it a middle class country, anyone with goals to be middle class is fleeing in such high numbers and you can go to the little villages and see what is left behind and know it's not helpful.
And I sincerely hope your faith has not been misplaced. Of course looking at the bigger picture I am much more thrilled about GWB being at the helm than if Gore had of won the election. It Gore was at the helm, I think I would have already left the country by now.
And that to a certain degree is part of the point of my criticism. Although we all like to criticize politicians, and I like doing it as well as the next guy, I still think it is a healthy activity to be engaged in. At the minimum it indicates a certain level of awareness. Because we as citizens have to accept that we also have a certain amount of reasonability for the position we are in and I would dare say that most of that responsibility lies in our not paying attention and not being active in the process.
Trust, but verify.
"But I am realistic about how long it will take to reverse the past 30 years worth of policies wrt immigration. It won't happen overnight. "
No it won't. I am pretty set in my opinion that we have a long hard struggle in front of us.
Nope, it's been too long and I always got the tones wrong anyway, sometimes causing tears of laughture at my butchery of that language's pretty sounds. That's Klingon in which you wuz verbally assaulted by me. Approximately:
Don't be silly, we're Klingons, that's great news! [In response to the suggestion that Spanish could become the official language. To Klingons, Mes'kin hordes taste just like chicken...]
[sound clip is Klingon for *where is the latrine*]
-archy-/-
Like the paper tiger that ate George Bush's reelection hopes in the 1992 election after Saddam thwarted him of total victory and one vote in five went to Ross Perot in the election a year later?
Like the *Bull Moose* candidacy of Theodore Roosevelt running as a Progressiveist in the 1912 election, resulting in Republican Party candidate Taft coming in third place [and in some states, behind the Prohibition and Socialist candidates, as well?]
Sometimes, those *paper tigers* eat Republican reelection hopes, and spit out the chewed-over bones. That what you want in 1994?
You happen to have noticed what happened to those Republicans who didn't follow through on their *Contract with America* promises?
-archy-/-
That's a bullseye. No doubt about it, had Pres. Bush slammed an iron gate shut on the borders on 9/12/01 his popularity rating would probably be even higher. If he had demanded a huge emergency budget to immediately increase personnel on the border by 10-1 it would have happened and Americans would be happy with it. With a heavy and strict screening process commerce could still proceed across the borders. In fact commerce could and should be given priority with trucks thoroughly and expeditiously examined and the inconvenience to cross border workers and American tourists just the tough luck of the times.
George Walker Bush will be remembered as the stubborn mediocrity who did not have sufficient intelligence to lead our people during the most critical eight years of the largest land invasion of one race by another in the history of the world.
No one will ever call me a Bushbot but GW Bush is not stupid. He is as sharp as a tack. He knows exactly what he is doing and he is getting almost exactly what he wants. In some instances it is exactly what I want. In this one it is exactly what I don't want. People can decide for themselves what his motive is for leaving all the doors and windows open.
I don't know what you have in mind when you say "the largest land invasion of one race by another" but whatever your reason for choosing the word 'race' it's wrong. The American people are not a race and neither are the Mexican people. Both populations are made up of diverse races and ethnicities. Change your statement to this...
"...the most critical eight years of the largest land invasion of one race culture by another in the history of the world."
...and you will be closer to the mark. This is not a PC thing. Anyone who has read enough of my remarks knows I am anything but PC. I abhor Political Correctness. It is nothing but a tool of tyranny and if you could show me the source of PC in the form of one person I would rip him limb from limb.
It isn't really culture either but that is a part of it. I like Mexico, Mexicans and many aspects of its culture. And there are aspects I don't like. The fact is that there are multiple cultures in Mexico just as there are here.
That's not really the problem. The problem, for the most part, is economic destruction through labor dilution, welfare drain, strain on LE resources and strain on judicial and incarceration resources. Also education resources. It is the poorest and least educated, by and large, that emigrate here to work. With that slice of the lowest economic wrung of Mexican society comes a disproportionate number of criminals. They are not representative of Mexican society on the whole.
They are also raised in a socialist state so they don't really appreciate the reasons our Republic fosters freedom they just like the idea of being free. On the other hand they are probably not as brainwashed with socialism/communism as American school kids are.
So, lose the word race (forget the word culture as well) and realize that what is at risk is our society being fractionalized and drained of wealth by the lost and abandoned segment of Mexican society as a result of the failure of Mexican government. And not to be a part of the Blame America First crowd but we are only victims of this by volunteering to be.
hchutch, read this as the voice of the John Birch society.
Sununu actually had a higher lifetime ACU rating than the (dis)honorable Senator Smith. Sununu: 94 Smith: 92 HERE
Rightwing2......do you have a day off? Or are you posting on your work time yet again at the DoD...wasting my tax dollars? You have a strange sense of morality (for a self-professed conservative) that allows you to cheat your employer AND the taxpayers by posting on the internet during work hours. Is cheating allowed by YOUR brand of conservatism?
The figures I've seen are nearly 40 million people have immigrated here since the infamous 1965 "Immigration Act". But that's only what they know. Since no reliable figures exist on illegal immigration it's no doubt a lot more than that.
Besides sealing off the borders and deporting all illegal aliens, a timeout from legal immigration for at least five years seems reasonable in order to give the country a little breathing room to absorb all this.
Exactly - except I would add we need some good old fashioned housecleaning.
You keep using the term "open borders", and are highly critical of the present administration for not enforcing the laws.
I post a verifyable statistic proving that we do not have open borders, and that over one million people were detained just last year while attempting to cross over. Your counter-point to my argument is completely unsubstantiated, and based on emotions rather than facts.
You can call it an open border all you want, but the reality is that it isn't.
If it was an "open border" 1.2 million people would have never been caught.
I asked an immmigration official in FR sometime ago how they came up with the number of illegals successfully enetring the country yearly, he admitted that it was an estimate, and that there was very little substantiation to provide.
Now, you question the 1.2 million for no reason other than you don't WANT to believe that figure, and then turn around and throw up "several millions" (in a year!) getting through with nothing to substantiate that ridiculous propaganda.
Oh, I know the truth, you just may not like my version of it.
You are onto it.
I agree. History will not be particularly kind to GWB because of this one issue alone.
That makes it a-ok.
OK - Luis, I will rephrase it - we do not have an open border we have a border that resembles a sieve - does that sound better.
Now the only statistic I need, is the huge number of people who are here illegally. They are here, Luis, they are here. They had to get here some way. To say we do not have an open border is laughable in the face of the proof of their existence - they are here.
Now I am sure somewhere, someone, has published statistics saying they are not really here -
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