So Long Tom, We Hardly Knew Ye

Posted by Seth Kramer on Friday, December 21st 2007 at 11:54pm




Yesterday, his birthday, Tom Tancredo, noted Republican xenophobe announced he would end his bid for the presidency, a full two weeks before the first vote had been cast in the primaries. Citing a desire to spend more time hating Mexicans with his family, toupee, Tancredo had this to say: "Everything I set out to do, we accomplished." Apparently, like the rest of America, Congressman Tancredo didn't take his presidential run all that seriously. Tancredo threw his support--which as of last FEC filing deadline amounted to 3 packs of Juicy Fruit and 100 Dora the Explorer comic books--behind former Governor Willard "magic underpants" Romney.

Despite the endorsement of Romney, Republicans are left with a big hole to fill--Larry Craig need not apply. Colorado Republicans were scrambling to find someone to fill the racist gap on the Republican ticket. Early talk leads some to believe Comedy Central's frequently unfunny race-baiting comedian Carlos Mencia could take the Congressman's place, however a replacement had not been named at press time.

While Tancredo himself could not be reached for comment--he was apparently busy hectoring a busboy at Au Bon Pain--many within "Team Tancredo" felt the writing was on the wall when Minutemen founder Jim Gilchrist backed Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. "The Congressman came over to my mom's house after that and we had a long talk about what this meant for the campaign," said Tancredo campaign manager Billy Duke. Duke, who is the 17 year-old son of David Duke, felt it would be difficult to maintain the momentum in light of such a blow. "Up until then we were on target to make our fund-raising goal of $250 by the end of the quarter, but that was a body blow."

Romney's staffers had to have the name repeated several times before acknowledging the endorsement, "short guy, bad toupee, smells like Vicks right?" When asked how they felt it would affect the campaign Romney's people said "Oh yeah, we'll probably really see a huge surge out of that. Oh hold on, I gotta go get the phone it's positively ringing off the hook with donations." said smart-assed Romney staffer Derek Braithwaite.

Nonetheless, we'll just have to wait until the Jan. 3rd Iowa Caucus to find out what to make of this interesting development. Reporting from Des Moines, Iowa I'm Seth Kramer.

Okay on a serious note I want to talk about Tancredo for a moment, because he's done something really remarkable. Election time always brings one or two single-issue candidates, or vanity candidates, candidates for VP and SecDef, SecState, etc. Usually the single issue candidates aren't successful in getting their particular issue talked about. This is usually because they're often 3rd party candidates with no real access to the media. Tancredo is a rare exception. Thanks to the likes of Lou Dobbs and Glen Beck who have been flogging this puppy ever since the day the GOP ill-advisedly decided it was an issue they could beat the Dems with in '06, Tancredo and his message have had a mainstream media venue.

The abortive immigration reform, the subsequent demonstrations, and the conservative Republican backlash in the House against the so-called "amnesty" bill has led to a rather widespread perception by most immigrants, both legal and not, that the Republican party is racist. This coupled with the fact that the single fastest growing voting bloc is Latinos means that people like Tancredo are issuing body blows to their party. Regardless of what you want to do about immigration, legal immigrants (who can vote, many of whom are conservative Catholics, and voted for Bush in '00 and '04) are turning against the Republican party.

While the politics of the angry white middle class (my term for Lou Dobbs Republicanism) is, for the time being, fashionable I think it's certainly not the wisest move for the Republican party as a whole.

I don't want to seem unfair. Illegal immigration is an issue, but it's certainly not the top tier issue that some in the GOP would like to make it. This happens in every culture when there's a perceived economic downturn. When there are few jobs everyone looks to the immigrants and says "They took our jobs". Ask the Germans about the Turks. Ask the French about the Arabs. Hell, ask the Poles about the Jews in the 1930s. Right now we are not in an economic downturn, at least by the measures of Wall Street, but many people perceive financial woes because they see the housing bubble bursting, health care is costing them more, and this makes them feel like they earn less, the value of the dollar is dropping, and our economy is undergoing fundamental shifts to participate in a global economy.

I guess what I wanted to say is that while Tancredo was at the bottom in a field of 8 ever since Tommy Thompson dropped out, he did have his finger on the pulse of a particular sector of America. I'm just not sure what he was advocating is an altogether wise strategy for the long term. Not just because it would damage his party, but because it would damage the economy and further endanger the very people at whom his demagoguery was directed.

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