Iowans Embrace Tancredo
Even before he announced his candidacy for the presidency, the mainstream media routinely dismissed Rep. Tom Tancredo as an “extremist” or “outsider”; now, they call him a “longshot.” But Tancredo’s “[c]ampaign to expel illegal immigrants [is] resonat[ing] in [the] nervous, early-caucus state” of Iowa, according to a recent report in the Chicago Tribune.
Tancredo is greeted with cheerful backslaps inside a crowded truck-stop diner that is minutes from an Indian reservation casino outside Sioux City. He has come to discuss what many in this rapidly changing corner of northwestern Iowa have waited for: his bid to become U.S. president…
While Tancredo’s Republican bid is widely regarded as a long shot, the reaction he has received so far in Iowa shows his campaign can’t be entirely dismissed, political analysts say…
Tancredo grabbed the loudest applause of the night after a lectern-thumping speech that cast his campaign as a fight to preserve American values and Western civilization itself.
“This is our land, fight for it. This is our flag, pick it up. This is our country, take it back,” he told the cheering crowd.
In an interview afterward, Tancredo said he wants to stop a slow erosion of American identity in the face of rampant immigration from Mexico, economic globalization and trade laws like the North American Free Trade Agreement that pave the way for a “North American Union” similar to the European Union. (Mexican immigrant leaders in Chicago and other U.S. cities embrace that concept.)
Citing favorite author Samuel Huntington, the Harvard scholar who has sounded alarms against multiculturalism, Tancredo argued that the desire among even legal immigrants to assimilate into American culture is fading. The federal government should “encourage” assimilation by abolishing bilingual education and declaring English the country’s official language, he said…
In Council Bluffs, close to a Dutch windmill honoring immigrants from that country, Sheri Anderson, 37, stood inside Tancredo’s new campaign office and called the congressman “a voice in the wilderness.”
Anderson, a computer technician from nearby Omaha, lamented the changes in the Nebraska city in which she has spent her entire life, where German, Polish and Italian shops in Omaha’s downtown have been replaced by Mexican stores.
“Where I grew up, it’s now known as ‘Little Juarez,’ ” she said, complaining of local crime. “When I was a kid and they were teaching us Spanish on ‘Sesame Street,’ it never dawned on us that this is where the country was headed. I wish I was older. My mom won’t live to see that. But I will.”
This woman “gets it”! She has come to recognize the discrepancy between the sweetness-and-light multiculturalism of “Sesame Street” and the brutal reality of being displaced from your own homeland by an alien population.Illinois has the same illegal alien problem as Iowa. Let’s work to help as many Illinoisans as possible to “get it” too!
Unfortunately, many people in Iowa have seen the effects of immigration first-hand. The meatpacking plants have brought in huge numbers of illegals over the past few years. Americans were doing those jobs, but not for the wages that the companies wanted to pay.
Posted on June 7th, 2007 at 6:09 am by Jennifer MWe need to take the country back from the big business corporations that seek to profit at all costs. Our politicians have been kow-towing to big business for far too long. This must be put to an end.
Posted on June 17th, 2007 at 4:18 am by Expat OverlordUnfortunately, the people of Iowa have failed to invite Ron Paul to the Republican Debate. What are they afraid of? Ron Paul is a strict constitutionalist who wants America to return to the great Republic it once was. Tancredo and Paul are the only hope for our country.
Posted on June 22nd, 2007 at 5:23 am by Carole HawkinsTom Tancredo has been a voice in the wilderness for quite some time. If elected, he would reduce immigration and deport illegals. His website is at: WWW.TEAMTANCREDO.ORG
Posted on June 22nd, 2007 at 2:49 pm by bob