Tancredo for President

Good news this morning. The LATimes has a piece on Tom Tancredo talking about a run for President in 2008. He is the top current elected example of why I think Nixon's "Southern Strategy" ruined the GOP in the long term.

By embracing the southerners who opposed civil rights in the '72 election, the GOP shifted part of their base to "nativist" elements whose issues of "preserving our national identity" represent a dimininshing demographic slice as America grows. The GOP can't keep this side of the party quiet, thus the "soft-bigotry" of immigration and anti-equal opportunity will send the growing "minority" constituencies to the Democrats for a generation. I explained it far better here.

Anyhow, Tancredo is the true face of one segment of the Republican party that they would prefer not to admit to, and he's talking about running for president in 2008 to bring it out. Awesome. The best way to expose bigots is to put them in a bigger room and let them talk off the cuff.

Tancredo — pronounced Tan-CRAY-dough — is even pondering a run for president in 2008. Not to win — he doesn't kid himself — but to put illegal immigration front and center, even if that drives a wedge further in the GOP.....

Tancredo dates his interest in immigration to his years as a teacher dealing with bilingual education. "It was far more political than educational," says Tancredo, the grandson of Italian immigrants. He suggests that today's newcomers are more likely to segregate themselves as "some hyphenated something or other" than try to assimilate.

He sees his work on immigration as part of a larger fight to save Western civilization from a "cult of multiculturalism" that threatens to cleave the country into ethnic fiefs.

"It's of no consequence to me where you're from," he says, shouting over the roar of the Orange County crowd. "All that I ask of you is that when you get here, you become an American!" .....

In a CNN interview on immigration legislation, he unfurled a long, winding metaphor about "a mail-order bride" and her "bad seed" baby when, abruptly, he stopped and laughed at the verbal mess he'd made. .....

When the Denver Post profiled the honor roll student of an illegal immigrant family, Tancredo unsuccessfully tried to have the family deported.

(And, just quick reminder, if you don't have an account with the LATimes, you can use the incredibly useful www.bugmenot.com link to the right to get an active username and password. It's a database of active user/pass for a ton of sites. It's a newsjunkie's dream.)