Thread: Tancredo reportedly to leave House at end of '08

DENVER (AP) - Representative Tom Tancredo plans to leave the U.S. House at the end of 2008, whether his longshot presidential bid is successful or not.


The Colorado Republican told The Rocky Mountain News he believes he has done all he can do in the House, especially on illegal immigration.

Tancredo has been an outspoken opponent of illegal immigration. He is in his fifth term in the House.

He told the newspaper he doesn't have a specific career plan in mind for the future.

http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=79906

Oh no, Duncan Hunter plans on leaving too - he's retiring.

This is a bummer.

Originally Posted by StokeyBob

This is a bummer.

You got that right!

This is not a real good thing.
Maybe he'd run for Allard's Senate seat???
He needs to stay and fight on, the war is not won.

Tancredo and Hunter both leaving? That is not good for us!

In this article he says he is thinking of going up against Sen. Ken Salazar. This could work out better for us.

http://salazar.senate.gov/



http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drm...734116,00.html


Tancredo says he's leaving Congress

Tom Tancredo: "I have done all I can do in the House."

By M.E. Sprengelmeyer, Rocky Mountain News
October 29, 2007

Even if he loses his long-shot bid for the White House, Rep. Tom Tancredo will be leaving the U.S. House of Representatives at the end of 2008.

Tancredo, 61 , waited until after the Colorado Rockies' last out of the World Series on Sunday night before announcing that he plans to retire from Congress at the end of this, his fifth term.

"It's the fact that I really believe I have done all I can do in the House, especially about the issue (immigration) about which I care greatly," he said.

Tancredo said other people are now taking up leadership on the immigration issue.

On a personal note, he added, "I am certainly looking forward to a time when at least a week can go by when I don't have to get on an airplane."

The decision is not a surprise, considering Tancredo's repeated complaints that his presidential run was taking a heavy toll on him and his family. But it is sure to set off a mad succession scramble in his solidly conservative, suburban Denver district.

Tancredo parlayed a back-bench seat in Congress into a national megaphone to oppose illegal immigration, denounce a so-called "cult of multiculturalism" and warn about a "clash of civilizations" between radical Islam and Western civilizations.

Those issues have been the centerpiece of Tancredo's bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, although he has yet to break out of single digits in most polls. That campaign continues, with the first votes scheduled in the Iowa precinct caucuses in January.

Until now, Tancredo has tried to put off any talk of what he would do if his White House bid fell flat. But over the summer, he began hinting that he had his eyes on a 2010 contest against Sen. Ken Salazar, a Democrat he sees as his polar opposite on the immigration issue.

He has often complained about the rigors of the presidential campaign trail, which has required him to spend more than 50 days in Iowa, and dozens more in New Hampshire, South Carolina and other states this year.

To run for congressional re-election, "I have to have the fire in the belly, and this takes a lot of effort, what I'm doing here," Tancredo said in a July interview in Iowa.

"I'm telling you, it just wears on you just generally, physically, everything," he said. "I just don't know whether I'll have the strength, the fire burning still."

sprengelmeyerm@shns.com