Thread: Long-Shot Tancredo Hits Iowa Target

Long-shot Tancredo hits Iowa target
Campaign to expel illegal immigrants resonates in nervous, early-caucus state

By Antonio Olivo
Tribune staff reporter
Published May 31, 2007


ONAWA, Iowa -- Driving along an empty ribbon of State Highway 29, the AM radio signal fades between a lonely Mexican ballad and a conservative talk show host's morning rant.

Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) feels right at home.

Tancredo is greeted with cheerful backslaps inside a crowded truck-stop diner that is minutes from an Indian reservation casino outside Sioux City. He has come to discuss what many in this rapidly changing corner of northwestern Iowa have waited for: his bid to become U.S. president.

They've seen or heard Tancredo, 61, during hundreds of appearances on cable TV news and talk radio, raging against one of the greatest immigration waves in U.S. history. His crusade to have every illegal immigrant in the U.S. deported and to make English the nation's official language has inspired a cult following for this grandson of Italian immigrants, attracting white supremacists and PTA moms alike.

The fifth-term Denver congressman's suggestion that Muslim holy sites be military targets and his focus on Mexican criminals when discussing border policy also has earned him scorn. Even leaders in his party avoided him after he characterized President Bush's stance on immigration reform as "lacking courage."

While Tancredo's Republican bid is widely regarded as a long shot, the reaction he has received so far in Iowa shows his campaign can't be entirely dismissed, political analysts say.

He hasn't left much of a footprint in Congress, and yet, driven by an anti-illegal immigrant wind, he audaciously has become a single-issue candidate for president, his fists bared as he derides a bipartisan immigration plan being debated in the Senate and calls his opponents "soft."

Immigrant population surges

Iowa, home to the nation's first presidential caucuses in January, has one of the fastest growing foreign-born populations, as mainly Latin American immigrants arrive for jobs in meatpacking plants, on farms and in construction.

Worries in the state about assimilation, shrinking wages and over-burdened schools and hospitals reflect deeper national concerns over immigration that aren't likely to be resolved by the changes being considered in Congress, according to both sides of the debate.

The longer the problem of illegal immigration lingers, the easier it will be for Tancredo to serve as a GOP spoiler as his hard-line stance attracts voters feeling overwhelmed by their changing social landscape, said University of Iowa political science professor Peverill Squire.

"Here in Iowa, things have changed dramatically in the last two decades and it's probably caught a lot of Iowans by surprise," Squire said.

"Tancredo talking in a way to suggest that some of these changes can be slowed down or even reversed, for some people, may be comforting," he added.

A recent University of Iowa poll indicated that 96 percent of Republicans in the state consider a candidate's stance on immigration to be "very important" or "somewhat important" in their vote, with 57 percent saying they support allowing illegal immigrants to "earn" U.S. citizenship if they paid back taxes and learned English.

With Republicans split over immigration policy, top tier GOP candidates such as Sen. John McCain of Arizona, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney recently have hardened their views.

Touring through Iowa, Tancredo takes credit for the shift, relishing his underdog status with jokes about not being invited to the White House.

His outsider's role has enabled Tancredo to speak more bluntly than some of his rivals.

That approach worked at the GOP's Lincoln Day Dinner in Des Moines, where McCain, Giuliani and eight other candidates addressed about 1,000 of the party's faithful.

Tancredo grabbed the loudest applause of the night after a lectern-thumping speech that cast his campaign as a fight to preserve American values and Western civilization itself.

"This is our land, fight for it. This is our flag, pick it up. This is our country, take it back," he told the cheering crowd.


Long-shot Tancredo hits Iowa target
Campaign to expel illegal immigrants resonates in nervous, early-caucus state





In an interview afterward, Tancredo said he wants to stop a slow erosion of American identity in the face of rampant immigration from Mexico, economic globalization and trade laws like the North American Free Trade Agreement that pave the way for a "North American Union" similar to the European Union. (Mexican immigrant leaders in Chicago and other U.S. cities embrace that concept.)

Citing favorite author Samuel Huntington, the Harvard scholar who has sounded alarms against multiculturalism, Tancredo argued that the desire among even legal immigrants to assimilate into American culture is fading. The federal government should "encourage" assimilation by abolishing bilingual education and declaring English the country's official language, he said.


Frank Sharry, executive director of the Washington-based National Immigration Forum policy group, agreed that there is a legitimate debate to be had over how to better assimilate immigrants and whether U.S. culture is becoming balkanized.


But Tancredo's approach has done more to provoke a culture of hate surrounding immigration, Sharry said, comparing the lawmaker to Pat Buchanan, the TV commentator and former presidential candidate. Tancredo's campaign director is Buchanan's sister, Bay Buchanan, who engineered her brother's surprise 1996 victory in New Hampshire.

Like Buchanan, Tancredo can be a verbal bomb-thrower, recently drawing protests from Jeb Bush, the former Republican governor of Florida, and others for comparing Miami to "a Third World country." He also sparked outrage for suggesting that another major terrorist attack against the U.S. be met by "taking out" Muslim holy sites, including Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

Tancredo acknowledged past campaign fumbles, adding that some of his statements were misunderstood.

"I assure you there is no animus in what drives me and the political goals I've established for myself," he said. "This is not racially motivated or ethnically driven."

Outcry over 2 agents in prison

The case of U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean has helped Tancredo move beyond such talk.

The two are in federal prison after being convicted of trying to cover up a 2005 shooting of an unarmed Mexican national allegedly smuggling 700 pounds of marijuana into the U.S.

Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, who was struck by a bullet in the buttocks while fleeing the agents, was granted immunity for testifying during the trial in El Paso, Texas. That detail has ignited conservative talk show hosts, resonating with voters as Tancredo champions the imprisoned men's cause.

In Council Bluffs, close to a Dutch windmill honoring immigrants from that country, Sheri Anderson, 37, stood inside Tancredo's new campaign office and called the congressman "a voice in the wilderness."


Anderson, a computer technician from nearby Omaha, lamented the changes in the Nebraska city in which she has spent her entire life, where German, Polish and Italian shops in Omaha's downtown have been replaced by Mexican stores.

"Where I grew up, it's now known as 'Little Juarez,' " she said, complaining of local crime. "When I was a kid and they were teaching us Spanish on 'Sesame Street,' it never dawned on us that this is where the country was headed. I wish I was older. My mom won't live to see that. But I will."

Outside, Anibal and Virginia Castro walked with their two children from a nearby library, scanning the crowd of Tancredo supporters. Toting videos and Dr. Seuss books for their 4-year-old daughter, the couple who arrived 10 years ago from El Salvador complained the area is getting too hostile.

Tancredo said he isn't out to cause division. Once voters get to know him better, he said they will realize "I'm a pretty pedestrian guy" who loves Broadway musicals and wants to do right by hard-working citizens and legal immigrants.

His favorite movie, Tancredo said, is "True Grit," a tale starring an aging John Wayne in a quest for justice in the Old West.

His favorite food?

"Mexican," Tancredo said, smiling.




http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nati ... 6441.story

"This is our land, fight for it. This is our flag, pick it up. This is our country, take it back," he told the cheering crowd.

Well, done Tommy!!! I will vote for you because you are the only one that discuss and take a stand on these issues!!