You might have missed it while reporters were swooning over the
ambitions of Barack Obama, but another candidate announced on
Tuesday that he was exploring a presidential bid. Congressman Tom
Tancredo (R-Colo.) formed a committee to begin raising money for
what he admitted would be an “arduous and uphill battle” for the
2008 Republican presidential nomination.
Tancredo supporters don’t have the audacity to hope their man
will get the Obama treatment from the media anytime soon. Nobody
will mistake the slightly rumpled five-term congressman for the
dapper, charismatic Obama. And while the famous freshman senator
from Illinois downplays his reliably liberal voting record by
spouting uncontroversial platitudes, Tancredo has thrown himself
into the polarizing immigration debate with a single-mindedness
that unnerves even many conservatives.
Yet it is precisely Tancredo’s focus on immigration that makes
him a hero to border-conscious voters who don’t see any other major
politician willing to address their concerns. These voters have
become increasingly alienated from the Republican Party and have
been searching for creative ways to convey their disappointment
with the GOP leadership.
There has been an organized effort to deny Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) the
Republican National Committee chairmanship because of his
co-sponsorship of an immigration bill offering a “path to
citizenship” for approximately 85 percent of the country’s illegal
immigrants. Like-minded activists helped hand Congressman Duncan
Hunter (R-Calif.), an immigration hawk with even less chance of
winning the nomination than Tancredo, a surprise victory in an
Arizona
straw poll. From the Minutemen to the streets of Maricopa
County, there are Americans who aren’t just angry about our porous
borders — they see it as the most important political issue of our
time.
With Tancredo getting closer to throwing his hat into the ring,
these activists are no doubt pleased to finally have someone to
vote for. John McCain was a lead sponsor of the Senate immigration
bill; Rudolph Giuliani is on record supporting a guest-worker
program along the same lines. Tancredo opposes all such proposals
as thinly disguised amnesties. While other prospective candidates
were sitting on the fence, he was sponsoring legislation to build
one along the U.S.-Mexico border.
But immigration restrictionists should perhaps temper their
enthusiasm. Paradoxically, a poorly executed presidential campaign
could set back their movement.
For one thing, Tancredo’s decision to enter the race was also a
concession that no leading Republican presidential candidate was
going to take a hard line on immigration. For the past year,
Tancredo has been telling backers and reporters alike that he would
run only if he failed to persuade a top-tier GOP contender —
“someone taller and with better hair,” he frequently quipped — to
take up the issue. Obviously, McCain, Giuliani, and Kansas
Republican Sen. Sam Brownback were never going to fit the bill, but
perhaps Mitt Romney or the pre-Macaca George Allen could have.
By running what will end up being a single-issue immigration
campaign (whether he wants it to be one or not), Tancredo risks
relieving the frontrunners — who already don’t seem too concerned
about what restrictionists think of them — of any need to appeal
to his constituency. And if he does poorly, Tancredo will become
Exhibit A in his opponents’ case that immigration enforcement isn’t
an election winner.
Immigration hawks are still reeling from their losses in 2006,
including John Hostettler, the former House immigration
subcommittee chairman, in Indiana and both J.D. Hayworth and Randy
Graf in Arizona. They also were too quick to tie their political
fortunes to overheated and inept candidates who made casual
proposals for forced labor camps and complained about the way
Satan
was interfering with their campaign fundraising.
After these episodes — each carefully woven into the
conventional wisdom by supporters of guest workers — an
unimpressive Tancredo performance would be a huge blow.
It gets worse. By launching a quixotic presidential campaign
instead of running for re-election or making a more promising bid
for Colorado’s open Senate seat, Tancredo may leave his
pro-enforcement contingent in the House without a well known public
voice. Tancredo has chaired the Congressional Immigration Reform
Caucus since 1999. Last year, the group played a key role in
persuading the House GOP leadership to stand firm against both the
White House and the Senate on immigration. Other leaders can surely
be found — Congressman James Sensenbrenner also played a crucial
part — but not all of them would back the full range of the
caucus’s immigration-policy prescriptions.
America needs to have a constructive debate about immigration,
one that recognizes the paradox observed by Robert J. Samuelson: “To make
immigration succeed, we need to curb some immigration.” Far from
being anti-immigrant, real border enforcement can help us better
assimilate newcomers to our shores.
Maybe by running for president Tancredo can facilitate this
debate. But if recent single-issue immigration candidacies are any
guide, his campaign should be greeted as skeptically as any
Democratic-sponsored guest worker program.
