Tom Tancredo

By Brad Friedman on 2/5/2010 5:53PM

TOM TANCREDO THREATENS TO RUN FOR GOVERNOR

The GOP has two candidates battling it out to determine who will be America's Next Top Person To Run Against Former Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper To Be Governor Of Colorado. In one corner, we have former 3rd District Representative Scott McInnis. In the other, entrepreneur Dan Maes. And parachuting into the ring, we have Tom Tancredo -- former Representative and real-life David Mamet character (his policy: "Always be closing (America's border)").

Tancredo is not happy! (But you already knew that, because we are talking about Tom Tancredo.) And he's issued a crazy ultimatum to everyone involved:

Former Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo demanded today that the two GOP gubernatorial candidates drop out of the race.

If they don't, he said he will run for governor as an American Constitution Candidate, a move likely to split the Republican Party in November's general election.

This isn't making state GOP chair Dick Wadhams happy, at all.

"I honestly can't believe he's doing this right now," Wadhams said. "By creating this false choice that they have to get out now or I get in, is nothing more than Tom following his own ambition."

Wadhams position is that if Tancredo jumps into the race, it will essentially split the conservative vote and pave the way for a Hickenlooper victory. Tancredo believes that this outcome is going to happen anyway if the choices are McInnis and Maes. And so, Tancredo wants the two candidates to follow this insane plan of his -- to save Colorado:

Tancredo called upon Scott McInnis and Dan Maes to commit to leaving the race Aug. 11, just hours following the results of the primary. That way a Republican vacancy committee could appoint a replacement. Tancredo said he doesn't care if the substitute is not himself.

So, the idea is that the two competitors will commit to not running before the primary, then they actually stage the primary, and then the winner will say, "Like I promised Tom Tancredo, I will now quit the race, for some reason!" This does not seem likely to happen!

But as angry as Tancredo is at the state of the gubernatorial race, at least he's fighting his battle with political tactics and hasn't resorted to raining actual blows upon actual people.

Tea Bagger Tancredo Yearns for Return of Jim Crow-Era 'Literacy Tests' at Polling Place

Opening 'Tea Party Nation' speaker, former U.S. House Rep & GOP Presidential candidate, misses the good old days...

From John Byrne at RAW STORY...

The opening night speaker at the Tea Party convention suggested a return to a "literacy test" to protect America from presidents like Obama --- a segregation-era method employed by southern US states to keep blacks from voting.

In his speech Thursday to attendees, former Republican congressman Tom Tancredo invoked the loaded pre-civil rights era buzzword, saying that President Barack Obama was elected because "we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country."

Southern states used literacy tests as part of an effort to deny suffrage to African American voters prior to Johnson-era civil rights laws.

"Prior to passage of the federal Voting Rights Act in 1965, Southern (and some Western) states maintained elaborate voter registration procedures whose primary purpose was to deny the vote to those who were not white," a website for civil rights veterans explains. "In the South, this process was often called the 'literacy test.' In fact, it was much more than a simple test, it was an entire complex system devoted to denying African-Americans (and in some regions, Latinos) the right to vote."

Gosh, and sure is unfair to paint any of these Tea Baggers as racist, isn't it?

Among the questions on one of those old Alabama literacy tests [PDF], as highlighted in Byrne coverage, are these questions which we wonder if Tancredo himself would be able to answer (not that it would matter, because he's white):

"If a person charged with treason denies his guilt, how many persons must testify against him before he can be convicted?"

"If a president does not wish to sign a bill, how many days is he allowed in which to return it to Congress for consideration?"

"If the United States wishes to purchase land for an arsenal and have exclusive legislative authority over it, consent is required from [fill in the blank]."

After it was revealed that the sponsor of the "National Tea Party Convention" in Nashville, TN, was a for-profit corporation charging some $500 for admission, previously confirmed Tea Bag speakers Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) dropped out.

None of that was a problem for Tancredo, apparently. Nor for Sarah Palin (R-FOX), who is still scheduled to be the weekend's keynoter for a reported speaking fee of $100,000. Perhaps she'll up Tancredo's racist ante and call for a repeal of that pesky 13th Amendment.

And speaking of literacy, below is a photo of TeaParty.org founder Dale Robertson, taken at a Tea Bagger event in February of 2009. Plenty of literacy, no racism there...

General Information About Tom Tancredo

Thomas Gerard Tancredo (born December 20, 1945) is a former Republican member of the United States House of Representatives, former presidential candidate, member of the lollipop guild, ideological ringer for your borderline-racist grandfather, and a traitor to American Values.

Tancredo's sole political position seems to be resolute opposition to illegal immigration. This stance, however, seems to be less so informed by logic and reason and more so informed by panic that one of the Tancredo grandkids will be named Tom Tancredo-Rodriguez. It's as though, after seeing the first act of West Side Story, he got all fired up and stormed out and never saw the ending.

Some critics have identified Tancredo as hispanophobic, which is actually incorrect. He's also afraid of Muslims. And once said we should threaten to bomb Mecca.

One thing, however, that Tancredo has not demonstrated a fear of is looking like a fool on television, an activity he has frequently pursued.

During the 2008 Presidential campaign, Tancredo—America's littlest candidate—used every form of implicit racism and fear mongering available to him. For most Americans, this aggressive (if coarse and ignoble) campaign technique was still not enough to make him at all distinguishable from Duncan Hunter or Jim Gilmore, two fellow candidates best known for having been candidates.

Early Life

Tancredo was born and raised in Denver, Colorado, which must have been a trying youth as Denver is the city with the fifth largest Mexican-American population in the United States. Both sets of his grandparents immigrated to the United States from Italy several years earlier, a fact that would later be completely lost on him.

In the 8th grade, Tancredo once had a school project wherein he had to play the role of Fidel Castro. After some thoughtful consideration—and 10 hours of constant showering—Tancredo apparently decided that he was going to devote his entire life to making it difficult for everyone in the country to get a decent chimichanga.

He attended the University of Northern Colorado, a state university best known for not being one of the state universities anyone's heard of—appropriately foreshadowing his Presidential candidacy. While there, Tancredo was a member of the Young Republicans, a collegiate organization that's had remarkable success extending virginities since it's founding in the late 1800s. Matters were undoubtedly not improved when, in the 1960s, he often spoke on campus in support for the Vietnam War.

Of course, like many political traitors, when it came time to actually enlist for military service, Tancredo received a deferment for his "depression." While many leading psychologists would diagnosis Tancredo's nagging mental ailment with the technical term "cowardice," it is possible that Tancredo was suffering from a form of depression induced by the increasing Mexican population in Denver.

Tancredo served two terms in the Colorado House of Representatives before going on to be the regional representative for the Department of Education where his biggest achievement was getting rid of 70% of the staff.

Somewhere during this time, Tancredo converted from being an Italian-American Catholic to an Italian-American Evangelical Presbyterian, a species of Christian that is almost entirely unheard of outside the overly ambitious wing of the Republican Party.

Congress

Tancredo became a U.S. Representative from Colorado in 1998. During his years there, he spent most of his time authoring cranky-old-man legislation that most other congressmen wanted no part of.

Congressional highlights include: trying to amend the constitution to name English the national language, voting against sending aid to victims of Hurricane Katrina, and voting against a 9/11 memorial that supposedly resembled a Muslim symbol.

While, early in his career, the public paid as much attention to Tancredo as they do now (none), the September 11th attacks gave Tancredo the perfect national tragedy to exploit. Most notably, Tancredo produced a campaign ad in which he suggested that if we didn't let him seal the borders, there would be another Islamic terrorist attack.

It's unclear how the Mexican-American border is related to the September 11th attack, but if the perpetrators had so much as one chalupa for fourth meal, Tancredo will be sure to let us know.

In 2007, Tancredo ran for the President of the United States of Don't Even Think about It, Mexicans. While some people argue Tancredo's campaign was multifaceted and dynamic, everyone who is not Tom Tancredo agrees that it was only about immigration.

Although his campaign's terrorist ad seemed to indicate our political discourse had reached an all-time low, Tancredo soon after produced another ad in which he claimed illegal immigrants are raping our kids.

Positions on Immigration

Tancredo believes that illegal immigration is the greatest threat against the United States and that drastic measures must be taken to secure the borders and deal with those illegally employed now.

He is also against any benefits for illegal immigrants and has referred to the DREAM act—allowing young illegals to attend college—as "a nightmare act," an understandable remark as the only thing more terrifying than a regular illegal immigrant is an illegal immigrant who has sat through a survey of biology course.

Of course, Tancredo has been incredibly accepting of illegal immigrants in once scenario: when they are building TV stands in his house.

Tancredo has said, "Immigrants who cling to their language, heritage and loyalties while living in the U.S. threaten to turn the nation into a 'Tower of Babel.'" Interestingly, Tancredo himself grew up in the Italian neighborhood of north Denver. It's easy to argue that this fact makes Tancredo a hypocrite. And that's because it does.

In his defense, Tancredo himself does not appear to noticeably cling to any of the traditional or stereotypical traits of his Italian-American heritage. That is, aside from all the closeted racism.

Tancredo has positioned himself as the leading politician alerting Americans of the dangers posed by illegal immigration from Mexico, which—ironically—is one of the few jobs that can never be taken by a illegal immigrant from Mexico.

Ridiculous Statements

In addition to having little to no cultural sensitivity or even basic tact when expressing his opinions about illegal immigration, Tancredo has also branched out into making asinine statements about other issues.

Sotomayor

In 2009, Tancredo claimed that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor "appears to be a racist" because she said "things that are racist" though he failed to indicate what they were.

While other traitors (such as Newt Gingrich) have made similar comments, Tancredo is the only one to have also given a speech to the secessionist League of the South in front of Confederate flags while everyone sang "Dixie."

Early Life

Congress

Positions on Immigration

Ridiculous Statements

Sotomayor

Trivia