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Tancredo rules out 3rd-party candidacy
By M.E. Sprengelmeyer, Rocky Mountain News
January 30, 2007

WASHINGTON - Rep. Tom Tancredo has tapped an official from the now-defunct Virginia Freedom Party to be treasurer of his presidential exploratory committee, but that does not mean he's pondering a third-party candidacy, a spokesman said Monday.

"From the beginning, we've had no intention to run as a third-party candidate, ever, and we'll never consider that because he's a Republican, period," said T.Q. Houlton, spokesman for the newly formed Tancredo for a Secure America Exploratory Committee.

Tancredo, R-Littleton, filed paperwork creating the committee last week so he can raise money and decide whether to follow through with a long-shot run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008.

In numerous past statements, Tancredo has said he is and always will be a Republican. Still, the FEC filings list his treasurer as Kenneth C. McAlpin, who had been treasurer of the Virginia Freedom Party, a state Reform Party spin-off, until it disbanded in 2004.

McAlpin, also known as "K.C.," is prominent in the immigration-reform movement that has made Tancredo famous. He has served as a deputy director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, and is executive director of the group ProEnglish, which advocates making English the official language of the U.S.

McAlpin is not the only Reform Party veteran on "Team Tancredo." Shelly Uscinski, who will lead Tancredo's exploratory bid in the early primary state of New Hampshire, helped lead Pat Buchanan's Reform Party presidential bid in the state in 2000.

Tancredo could not be reached for comment Monday.

In the past, Tancredo has brushed aside suggestions that he might want to bolt from the Republican Party because of his frequent clashes with President Bush and other GOP members he accuses of backing a more lax immigration policy.

At an immigration forum in May of 2005, Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, suggested that Tancredo might want to follow in the footsteps of Buchanan.

"I think he ought to consider his views and decide whether they're consistent with the Republican Party," Cannon said at the time.

Tancredo dismissed that idea, saying Cannon was out of step with the GOP mainstream for supporting a White House- backed guest-worker program.

"I believe the Republican Party is with me on the issue," Tancredo said.

Since then, nothing has changed, and if Tancredo's exploratory committee turns into an official candidacy, it would only be as a Republican, Houlton said.