Tancredo to leave House next year
posted at 9:22 am on October 29, 2007 by Allahpundit
I felt we owed you a thread to mourn.
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…
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.
Your exit question: What’s next for Tancelot? Is he riding off into the sunset? Angling for a leadership role in that all-important coming battle against the Amero? Or lying in wait for Salazar in 2010? If the last one, a follow-up question: Does America need a senator who opposes legal immigration, too?
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
What happens to all the money he raised? Does anyone here know?
faraway on October 29, 2007 at 9:29 AM
I’m mourning! It’s tragic to lose an anti-illegal such as he.
I think this government should stop ALL immigration, at least for a while. We need to clean out all the illegals to make room for any future legals. Does that make me anti-immigrant? Damn right – both legal and illegal.
OBX Pete on October 29, 2007 at 9:34 AM
Tom, move to Arizona and run for Governor.
You will be more than welcome here.
Timothy S. Carlson on October 29, 2007 at 9:34 AM
I think he should give it to Fred! so he can pass it on to his family. What do the trolls think? :-)
OBX Pete on October 29, 2007 at 9:37 AM
I think it falls to the campaign to decide which other campaigns to donate it to. As I recall, Kerry took some flak two years ago for not donating what was left in his campaign war chest to Democratic congressional candidates.
Allahpundit on October 29, 2007 at 9:39 AM
Sounds like he’ll be running for the Senate.
Spirit of 1776 on October 29, 2007 at 9:50 AM
Now we know who’s side the rest of the candidates aren’t on.
Speakup on October 29, 2007 at 9:52 AM
The rest of the candidates aren’t on our side because they support legal immigration?
Allahpundit on October 29, 2007 at 9:53 AM
It’s a fault line that Republicans, nationally, need to not step over. Stopping illegal immigration will continue to poll high against Dems. If the Dems can paint the GOP as anti-legal-immigration then the GOP will be in trouble.
dedalus on October 29, 2007 at 9:55 AM
The Founding Father’s didn’t like immmigration at all. Thomas E. Woods book on 33 Questions about American history demonstrates that clearly.
I hope he runs for the Senate and helps a good man get elected to his district.
Tim Burton on October 29, 2007 at 10:01 AM
How high should “legal” immigration be, in order to be able to assimilate those we allow in “legally?” Wasn’t that his point? Maybe he really meant zero. I don’t know. But what is the “right” number, and where should they be from? These are no unfair questions, but it seems only Ted Kennedy was allowed to answer them.
Tancredo would do a good job in Chertoff’s position.
JiangxiDad on October 29, 2007 at 10:04 AM
I wish Tancredo would stay in the House, since I have doubts he can win the Senate race.
Anyway, I strongly disagree with the PC commandment that we must take immigrants. It is our choice as a sovereign nation to take whatever number of immigrants we want to take. We have to consider the total demographic picture. The idea that human population must always go up on a finite earth is simply insane. I know that some people on the right wing deny even the possibility of environmental disaster, but I think anyone who’s not religious about it could see a problem with a population of a 100 billion. And of course sometimes population will go up and thus there will be a need for population to go down at other times. It’s no disaster. Europe’s decline in population would be fine without the PC commandment about immigration. It would simply decline for a while and then go back up for a while.
But the PC commandment of immigration changes everything. It turns a natural population decline into an auto-genocide.
Countries during their periods of population decline need to be able to cut off immigration to protect their culture and their traditions. I accuse the hawkers of the PC commandment of immigration of the genocide of European peoples.
thuja on October 29, 2007 at 10:23 AM
Tancredos’ comments about legal immigrants were made in the context of a moratorium, not a complete elimination of legal immigration. That would bite, for those taking the responsible way to citizenship, but the country needs to get control of the whole situation, not piecemeal for the benefit of the dishonorable.
captivated_dem on October 29, 2007 at 10:24 AM
Tanc would be my choice for Homeland Security director. Unless Michelle wants the job, that is.
Bigfoot on October 29, 2007 at 10:25 AM
I believe our immigration mess is so large that we need a moratorium on all immigration until its sorted out, we have before, I think its needed at this point.
Speakup on October 29, 2007 at 10:31 AM
The PC argument isn’t an important one. Wealth creation is an important on. Tax cutting works primarily by fueling growth. For our economy to continue to grow (in competition with China’s) our organic population growth is insufficient.
Some may say that less growth to preserve their culture is OK. I don’t think so from a national security standpoint. We can do both by having tougher immigration criteria and emphasizing assimilation.
dedalus on October 29, 2007 at 10:32 AM
I would strongly urge Tom to take some time off and enroll in a Basic Public Speaking Course… something to teach him how to frame his thoughts in sharp, consice phrases and to be able to answer debate questions in ways that hit key points quickly and help persuade people.
I have listened to every GOP debate this year and Tancredo has missed every single opportunity to clearly and consisely state his point about the pitfalls of illegal immigration. He digresses, he wanders, he gives useless prelims and by the time he starts to wander close to the REAL MEAT his time is up.
He does have some good ideas, but as a communicator he is an abject failure.
He needs to do some Serious learnin’ if he wants to compete in ’10.
Always Right on October 29, 2007 at 10:49 AM
For most of everybody else its Mon morning for me its Fri at five PM.
That the rest of the candidates, disagreeing vehemently with a moratorium on immigration to me shows a connection between them and those entities who want immigration of any kind at any cost.
For people who should understand the immensity of the invasion they still seem to want the continuance of old bad habits.
If they’re going to try and straddle the fence, they deserve the splinters.
Speakup on October 29, 2007 at 11:00 AM
I’m sad that Congressman Tancredo might be retiring from public life, he’s a good guy who has served us well, we need more like him. Maybe he will run for the Senate, I hope so and if he runs I hope he wins.
Maxx on October 29, 2007 at 11:01 AM
I was mostly thinking about the experience of Europe with the Muslim immigrants. Kjetil Storesletten has published papers in academic journals to the effect that immigration has considerably less helpful to the wealth of Europe than immigration to the United States has been. And he does not include the demographic risk that the native European populatoins are taking of being displaced nor the increased crime and so forth. Kjetil’s results are hardly surprising outcome given all the welfare muslims of Europe.
Of course, I would welcome a small number of wealth creating immigrants to America. On the other hand, I’m not clear that Japan views them as necessary and their economy is doing just fine. One could also try to create a domestic population of economic high performers by conservative social policies like discouraging teenage motherhood. Here we are being screwed between liberal encouragement of teenage sex and conservative pro-lifers.
You mention a specific enemy of China, but China has learned though harsh experience that a one-child policy is necessary for environmental reasons. Do we have to repeat the mistakes of China, before we pay attention to the environment in making decisions about policies intended to create population growth and wealth?
thuja on October 29, 2007 at 11:27 AM
What terrible news. Can’t Tom keep his House seat and run for the Senate at the same time?
I agree that legal immigration should be essentially ended for a couple decades at least to sort out the mess and allow people to assimilate. The environmental aspect of such extreme population growth is killer, particularly in regards to water. Forty percent of the country has drought conditions, and Atlanta has just 90 days supply before it runs dry.
Water Supply
Brenda Walker on October 29, 2007 at 12:48 PM
Yes when the numbers are ever growing and we take in close to a million every year. Its time to put the “I am sorry but the park if full” sign up, “please call back for availability.”
It’s not our place to take up the slack for the rest of the world.
I think he would have a great run against that pos Salazar who i believe wouldnt be so happy to let the illegal have amnesty if they were predominatly not of the same blood line.
Yes thats right i said it Salazar is only doing this because the mass majority of the illegals are the same skin color as he is .
Mojack420 on October 29, 2007 at 12:50 PM
I really like Tancredo and wish he’d not take such a long time between leaving the House and running for the Senate. With the problems in Colorado, he is desparately needed right where he is.
Why the environmentalists have not been all over our population explosion is beyond me. The last forty years has been nothing short of national suicide. Our natural resources are being challenged at every level. We have to return to some form of sanity in the sheer numbers of immigrants to allow us time to catch up, fix what’s broken, and put in place a more rational policy.
24K lady on October 29, 2007 at 1:33 PM
Thanks for the reply. I’ll look at what Storesletten has written. I’d agree that we need to manage to sustainable long-term growth. Japan went through about a decade of annualized 1% growth in their economy, which may have something to do with their outlook on importing workers.
We need to be cognizant of our top-line economic growth in order to maintain our super power status. If we grow at all-costs and sacrifice our environment or culture that would be counterproductive.
dedalus on October 29, 2007 at 1:43 PM
He should be withdrawing from the race here soon. He stated the other day that he had made a wager (I can’t remember who it was with) that if Boston beat Colorado in the Series … he would withdraw.
Gregor on October 29, 2007 at 2:05 PM
Dedalus,
You can find Storesletten’s papers at
http://folk.uio.no/kjstore/
but I have to warn you that they involve hard econometrics and are not an easy read. The good news is that you basically need to read the intro and the summary to get the information a layman needs. It’s also important to keep in mind that while Storesletten’s paper are very good work, the man is a little bit of a dolt. What’s in his conclusions that are not justified by the facts uncovered by his research should be treated as an opinion at best equal to anyone else’s.
Anyway, the relevent article is Fiscal Implications of Immigration – A Net Present Value Calculation (pdf), Scandinavian Journal of Economics., 2003, vol 105 (3), pp. 487-506. You can download it there.
He also had a real good interview in a Norwegian newspaper, which I saw translated into English at some anti-Islamification of Europe website. You could try machine translation of his recent newspaper articles (at the bottom of the page).
thuja on October 29, 2007 at 3:22 PM
At least he had the class to wait until after the game unlike A-Rod. Say bye-bye New York! What an attention hog…
I take comfort in the likelihood that he will be making a lot less than the Yankees would have paid him.
clghitis on October 29, 2007 at 4:47 PM
Ambassador to Saudi Arabia under a Rudy-Romney team till his Senate bid?
Go Tanc!
profitsbeard on October 29, 2007 at 6:38 PM
This is weird.
Just yesterday I was listening to a Boston talk show, and “Tank” was on. Part of the convo was that he had offered to make a bet with Mitt, that if Colorado won the Series, Mitt would drop out of the presidential race, and vice versa if Boston won. Tancredo said that Mitt never took him up on the bet (did Mitt have no confidence in the Red Sox?) — and now this!
I’m sure there’s no relation between the two, but it’s weird!
ToddonCapeCod on October 30, 2007 at 7:24 AM