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With that statement, Maes was promising to enforce some draconian anti-undocumented immigrant law, even if Uncle Sam doesn't like it. "We're going to do what's best for the people of Colorado," he said -- excepting, I guess, the non-citizen people of Colorado.

Maes told his audience that he keeps going to what he thinks are fundraisers, only to find himself being told by various congressmen and senators to quit the gubernatorial race (these are also called "interventions," Dan). Longtime immigrant-hater Tom Tancredo is so fed up with Maes that he's entered the race on the Constitution Party ticket. And Tancredo is now polling in second place, more or less guaranteeing that Democrat John Hickenlooper will be the next governor of Colorado.

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State Republican Party chairman Dick Wadhams said he delivered the offer to Republican nominee Dan Maes after Tancredo offered it as a compromise to give Republicans a chance to win back the governor's office in November. Tancredo bolted from the party last month to run as an American Constitution Party candidate.

"Tom Tancredo contacted me late Monday to indicate he would withdraw from the race for governor if Dan Maes did so as well," Wadhams said. "I asked Tom for the opportunity to present this offer to Dan Maes, which I did do this morning. I felt it was my responsibility as state chairman to inform Dan of this offer since it held open the possibility of eliminating the current three-way race that gives the Democratic candidate a huge advantage."

Maes beat challenger Scott McInnis in the GOP primary last Tuesday after both men rejected a demand from Tancredo that they get out of the race and let the party pick a new candidate if polls showed neither man could beat Hickenlooper after the primary.

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Well, Scott McInnis has a plagiarism problem, and Dan Maes had some campaign finance problems. Tancredo's real problem is probably that he looked around one day, realized that any Republican with name recognition has a good shot at winning a race this year, and was dismayed to learn that it was too late for him to get on the Colorado Republican primary ballot.

Tancredo's original gambit was to call on both Maes and McInnis to promise to drop out the race after the primary, so that the party could name someone else for the November ballot. (That someone else would presumably be Tancredo.) But McInnis and Maes wouldn't go for that, surprisingly. So now Tancredo is a the Constitution Party's candidate for governor.

And then Tom Tancredo and the head of the Colorado GOP yelled at each other on the radio for a while.

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Tancredo -- best known for his vehement opposition to illegal immigration, if not immigration an immigrants generally -- stuck to the subject he really knows. Or at least thinks he knows.

The former congressman complained that "people who could not even spell the word 'vote', or say it in English, put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House. His name is Barack Hussein Obama." And he said the reason for this was that "we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country." (There's a reason for that, by the way.)

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Someday, everyone's going to get sick of writing this story. But not yet!

Joining the conservative revolutionary vanguard this week is former congressman and presidential candidate Tom Tancredo. Probably best known as the Republican Party’s foremost nativist, Tancredo confirmed Thursday that he is preparing to run for governor of Colorado in 2010. The ex-representative told a reporter that he “fully intends to run.”

Tancredo has entertained running for higher office a number of times in recent years, but the general consensus was that the guy is unelectable statewide in Democratic-trending Colorado. (So naturally, he ran for president instead.) He was planning to stay out of the current gubernatorial race, he says, because state Sen. Josh Penry was already in, providing the necessary conservative challenge to the leading Republican candidate, former Rep. Scott McInnis.

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So it's a little funny to see that he was on MSNBC Tuesday night arguing vociferously against the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court based on her views on race, especially during this exchange with host Ed Schultz:

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Last week, reported the Austin American-Statesman, responding to the news that Canadian authorities had "lost track" of 41,000 people who were supposed to be deported, Tancredo said:

"Our open borders present a serious danger to our citizens and I am calling again on our government to build a fence along our northern border as well as our southern border."

We'll leave the analysis to a commenter who posted his feelings on the Austin American-Statesman Web site:

Sounds like a great plan. Hopefully it will keep morons like Tancredo out of Canada.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2008/05/13/tancredo_canada/feed/ 60 http://www.salon.com/2008/01/07/huckabee_tax/ http://www.salon.com/2008/01/07/huckabee_tax/#comments Mon, 07 Jan 2008 12:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion//feature/2008/01/07/huckabee_tax For a generation Republicans have won elections by promising to do something new -- and usually strange -- to America's tax system, and by making wild and improbable claims about how great what they propose will turn out to be. This was how Ronald Reagan rode to victory in 1980 with his tax cut plan -- a plan that his own vice president and successor to be, George H.W. Bush, dismissed as "voodoo economics." This was what George W. Bush did back in 2000 when he claimed that faster economic growth would be guaranteed by yet another tax cut for the rich. And this is what Republican presidential front-runner Mike Huckabee is doing today with the "FairTax": a plan to replace the income tax and the Internal Revenue Service with a nationwide federal sales tax.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2008/01/07/huckabee_tax/feed/ 83 http://www.salon.com/2007/12/20/weirdness/ http://www.salon.com/2007/12/20/weirdness/#comments Thu, 20 Dec 2007 21:19:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2007/12/20/weirdness The presidential campaign may be starting to pack up for Christmas, but the tidings of comfort and joy -- nice cross, Huck! -- haven't stopped a whole flurry of weirdness from coming across the transom this afternoon.

We begin on the front page of the Drudge Report, where a worried-looking John McCain is said to be working furiously to keep the New York Times from publishing a "high-impact report involving key telecom legislation before the Senate Commerce Committee." Like the folks at the Hotline, we wouldn't think much of this -- when you've got Matt Drudge quoting folks identified as "newsroom insiders," some degree of skepticism is certainly in order -- except that the McCain campaign has seen fit to issue a denial. "It is unfortunate that rumor and gossip enter into political campaigns," the campaign says in a statement. "John McCain has a 24-year record of serving this country with honor and integrity. He has never violated the public trust, never done favors for special interests or lobbyists, and he will not allow a smear campaign to distract from the important issues facing our country."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/12/20/weirdness/feed/ 9 http://www.salon.com/2007/12/19/tancredo_5/ http://www.salon.com/2007/12/19/tancredo_5/#comments Wed, 19 Dec 2007 20:14:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2007/12/19/tancredo We might not have Tom Tancredo to kick around anymore. The Colorado congressman may be ending his quest for the Republican presidential nomination as early as Thursday, the Politico's Jonathan Martin is reporting.

Martin seems to be speculating in his blog post on the subject, but it's at least educated speculation. Tancredo has called a press conference, at which he'll make a "major announcement regarding the campaign." Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa -- Tancredo's friend and fellow immigration obsessive -- has endorsed another candidate, and Tancredo's congressional spokesman, contacted by Martin, didn't even know whether his boss would be staying in the race.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/12/19/tancredo_5/feed/ 7 http://www.salon.com/2007/11/29/debate_8/ http://www.salon.com/2007/11/29/debate_8/#comments Thu, 29 Nov 2007 13:31:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2007/11/29/debate We tweaked the president the other day for so often expressing optimism when it turns out none is warranted. If last night's CNN/YouTube debate is any indication, the Republicans who would succeed him suffer from exactly the opposite problem.

The word of the day is "scared."

Maybe it's the questions CNN selected: Again and again, we saw slightly creepy folks in badly lighted videos asking questions rooted in fear. It was supposed to be Peoria talking, but it seemed more like Paranoia. In two videos -- only one involving a cartoon character -- questioners brandished weapons. A kid with a Confederate flag in what looked to be his bedroom demanded to know what the Stars and Bars meant to the candidates. Joseph from Dallas insisted on knowing whether the candidates believe that every word of the Bible is true, then almost literally rammed the Good Book in their faces.

Were these people for real? Or were they sendups, liberals with webcams acting out their own paranoid parodies of the right-wing fringe?

Honestly, it was sometimes hard to tell.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/11/29/debate_8/feed/ 27 http://www.salon.com/2007/11/13/candidate_wives_guide/ http://www.salon.com/2007/11/13/candidate_wives_guide/#comments Tue, 13 Nov 2007 12:03:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life//feature/2007/11/13/candidate_wives_guide Presidential candidates, all too regularly, are people whose entire lives have been clipped and trimmed and buffed to meet polling specifications. But their spouses, their children, their siblings! If we're lucky, these dapper power brokers are surrounded by far less perfect and conventional characters: blissfully untamed bohemians, wack-jobs or deliciously unreconstructed nogoodniks. When a candidate has a partner with texture, with flair -- with an arrest record -- there is the chance that she or he will leaven the weighty wonk of the endless campaign season. These rogue spouses have the potential to entertain us through the made-to-order claptrap of the debates, cheer us when we can't bear to hear the word "Rasmussen" again.

Most important, the weirdest and most wonderful of them remind us that behind their mates' pearly veneers and ill-tailored pantsuits lie the beating hearts of actual live human beings who once -- possibly many moons ago, maybe at Shirley MacLaine's house -- abandoned their talking points and just plain fell in love.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/11/13/candidate_wives_guide/feed/ 84 http://www.salon.com/2007/11/12/tancredo_4/ http://www.salon.com/2007/11/12/tancredo_4/#comments Mon, 12 Nov 2007 22:45:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/politics//war_room/2007/11/12/tancredo Courtesy of Talking Points Memo, I was just watching the latest ad put out by Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. Boy, is it a doozy. There are, of course, blatant scare tactics, not to mention a hokey explosion, but for me there was one deciding factor that made me sit back and wonder: Is he serious?

Here, see for yourself. Here's Tancredo's ad -- pay special attention to the narrator's voice about 10 seconds in, when he says, "There are consequences to open borders beyond the 20 million aliens who've come to take our jobs."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/11/12/tancredo_4/feed/ 13 http://www.salon.com/2007/10/31/tancredo_3/ http://www.salon.com/2007/10/31/tancredo_3/#comments Wed, 31 Oct 2007 11:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/technology/how_the_world_works//2007/10/31/tancredo Tom Tancredo, the Colorado Republican who made his name denouncing illegal immigration, says he will not seek reelection to the House of Representatives because, "I've done what I set out to do."

"[The illegal immigration] issue now has a life of its own and it doesn't need one particular person to champion it,'' he said.

''I feel my job, my task, has been completed."

He sounds awfully self-satisfied. But a new analysis of the effect of immigration politics on the Hispanic vote in the United States suggests the job Tancredo actually accomplished was something quite different: the effective torpedoing of Republican chances for national political power for another generation.

The key finding, as detailed by Richard Nadler in "Border Wars: The Impact of Immigration on the Latino Vote" is blunt:

Immigration policies that induce mass fear among illegal residents will induce mass anger among the legal residents who share their heritage.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/10/31/tancredo_3/feed/ 32 http://www.salon.com/2007/10/22/debate_6/ http://www.salon.com/2007/10/22/debate_6/#comments Mon, 22 Oct 2007 13:12:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/10/22/debate 0 minutes. Fox News anchor Brit Hume, his American flag lapel pin in place, opens the latest Republican debate by boasting that it will be "seen and heard" on Fox News Channel, Fox News Radio and FoxNews.com. He does not mention that almost no one will be watching or listening, especially in New Hampshire, because right now the Fox Network is broadcasting Game 7 of the American League Championship Series between the Boston Red Sox and Cleveland Indians. Fox has effectively stolen its own audience from itself.

1 minute. Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace is not wearing his American flag lapel pin, and therefore cannot be trusted. He is a troublemaker. A bad seed. He wants to start a fight. He tells former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani that former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson thinks he is a softy -- "soft on abortion," "soft on gun control," and a lousy conservative. Giuliani, who is wearing his pin, does not take the bait. He just talks about his accomplishments in New York.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/10/22/debate_6/feed/ 41 http://www.salon.com/2007/10/22/tancredo_2/ http://www.salon.com/2007/10/22/tancredo_2/#comments Mon, 22 Oct 2007 10:45:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/10/22/tancredo

U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo. -- best known for his zealous opposition to illegal immigration -- bills himself on his campaign Web site as "a solid pro-life, pro-gun, small government Republican." What's not mentioned on his site is anything about the environment or energy issues. (Considering that he's got a lifetime approval rating of 11 percent from the League of Conservation Voters, perhaps that's no surprise.)

But when asked about these issues, Tancredo makes a patriotic call for energy independence, just like the rest of the presidential contenders. And while he likes to joke that Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" is the last book of fiction he's read, Tancredo also pays lip service to a shift away from carbon-based energy sources and the withdrawal of subsidies from fossil-fuel energy. Still, his free-market-driven vision of America's energy future includes lots more coal mining and oil drilling, as well as nuclear power.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/10/22/tancredo_2/feed/ 7 http://www.salon.com/2007/10/18/candidate_books/ http://www.salon.com/2007/10/18/candidate_books/#comments Thu, 18 Oct 2007 11:33:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2007/10/18/candidate_books The 2008 crop of presidential candidates is certainly a literate bunch. They've all written books, except Rep. Duncan Hunter,R-Calif., unless he's the Duncan Hunter who wrote, "A Martian Poet in Siberia," a self-published sci-fi novel about global warming. Published between 1972 and two weeks from now, the candidates' books vary as much as their authors, ranging from gripping personal revelation to high-minded speechifying to run-of-the-mill wonkery.

And we have read many of them, though we didn't get to Alan Keyes' oeuvre because of his late entry into the race. In the 16 reviews that follow, the books are rated on a rising scale of one to five, with icons appropriate to the candidates -- the first President Roosevelt for the Republicans, the second for the Democrats, and cosmonauts for the more, um, idealistic entrants in the race for the White House.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

"Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership and the Olympic Games" by Mitt Romney

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/10/18/candidate_books/feed/ 22 http://www.salon.com/2007/10/10/dearborn_debate/ http://www.salon.com/2007/10/10/dearborn_debate/#comments Wed, 10 Oct 2007 14:38:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/10/10/dearborn_debate 0 minutes. This debate is sponsored by CNBC, the financial news network, which means that it will be extra boring. It's 4 p.m. in New York, where the stock market has just closed with record highs for the Dow Jones and the S&P 500. But the candidates are on a stage outside Detroit, where one in every 29 homes went into foreclosure in the first half of the year. Co-host Maria Bartiromo welcomes everyone to "the heart of the American auto industry, a fitting backdrop to the economic issues facing the American people." In other words, the roaring economy stinks for working people, so Republicans have gathered near the source of the smell.

1 minute. This is also the first debate for former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, who is wearing a gold-checkered tie and deep creases in his face. He is asked if the American economy is headed toward a recession. "I see no reason to believe we are heading for ..." Thompson's mind goes blank for a beat, then another. "For an economic downturn," he recovers, seconds too late. He says he understands that "pockets in the economy" like Michigan are having difficulty. "I think you always find that in a vibrant, dynamic economy." In other words, Thompson doesn't mind the smell much.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/10/10/dearborn_debate/feed/ 54 http://www.salon.com/2007/10/04/sanctuary/ http://www.salon.com/2007/10/04/sanctuary/#comments Thu, 04 Oct 2007 11:45:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/10/04/sanctuary Al-Qaida's targets on 9/11 were in New York City and Washington. But if Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., and 233 other members of the U.S. House have their way, those cities and others at high risk of terrorist attacks, including some that have reportedly been the target of foiled plots, would be stripped of the federal funding intended to keep their citizens safe from attack.

At issue are so-called sanctuary cities. There is no single definition of a "sanctuary city," but in essence it is one that takes a "don't ask, don't tell" stance toward the immigration status of its residents. For example, a sanctuary city might bar local police from inquiring about or disclosing the status of a victim or witness of a crime. A comprehensive list of sanctuary cities would have to include a huge swath of urban America. It would include the four biggest cities in the United States, the majority of the 25 biggest cities, and every one of the six urban areas the Department of Homeland Security says face the highest risk of terrorism -- New York, Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and Houston.

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