Former Congressman Tom Tancredo’s third-party race for Colorado governor has the potential to split the conservative vote and torpedo the GOP’s efforts to take back the gubernatorial mansion after four years of Democratic rule.
- Former GOP congressman Tom Tancredo of Colorado during a July 23 interview at KDRV-TV in Denver. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski)
But will it affect other Republicans up and down the ballot?
Dick Wadhams, chairman of the state GOP, fears it will. The reason: Tancredo has proved that he has quite a flair for the provocative statement and the dramatic gesture – and a knack for grabbing media attention.
Several years back, Tancredo said the U.S. ought to threaten to bomb Mecca and other Muslim holy sites. More recently, Tancredo expressed longing for a “civics literacy test” to be administered to all citizens before they earned the right to vote. He’s also big on impeaching President Barack Obama, whom he has repeatedly declared to be the biggest threat to the U.S., more dangerous even than al Qaeda.
During his short-lived run for the GOP presidential nomination in 2008, Tancredo made a splash with a TV ad depicting a bomb planted by illegal immigrants exploding in a mall and the slogan, “Tancredo – before it’s too late.” (He also put together a derisive video that portrayed his fellow Republican candidates wearing sombreros and attending cockfights, in an effort to slam them as soft on illegal immigration.)
Such tactics could win Tancredo a disproportionate share of media time as the fall campaign revs up, Wadhams said, crowding out the messages of other GOP contenders across the state – even, perhaps, in the pivotal race for U.S. Senate.
“He can’t contain himself,” Wadhams said. “This guy has such an unquenchable thirst for national media attention, at any cost.”
If Tancredo becomes identified first and foremost as an immigration candidate – and if voters see him as Republican, despite his new affiliation with the American Constitution Party — that could hurt down-ballot GOP candidates. The Colorado electorate in general doesn’t put a priority on the immigration issue, said Katy Atkinson, a Republican political consultant who isn’t working for any candidates in the gubernatorial race.
“Then again,” Atkinson added, “Tancredo might make rank-and-file Republican candidates look downright moderate” – a plus in Colorado, where about a third of the electorate is unaffiliated with either major party.
Tancredo says he plans to revive his seal-the-borders message as a key plank of his gubernatorial platform; as he puts it, he’ll be arguing that he can “keep Colorado secure against the illegal alien onslaught.” But he also says he’ll be running on several other issues, including courting businesses and slashing the size of the state government.
The details of those pledges? Stay tuned, Tancredo says with a laugh. He just got into the race. He’s working on it.
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