Will Tom Tancredo or Lou Dobbs run for President? Let’s hope so.
The major candidates for the Republican nomination have glaring weakness in 2008 concerning immigration that will sink them among the Republican base.
Rudy Giuliani sued the federal government attempting to make New York City an amnesty city.
Mitt Romney has not cracked down on employers who hire illegals and employers breaking state laws as well as federal laws.
Newt Gingrich has the albatross of NAFTA hanging around his neck His stances on earned citizenship is a disguised amnesty and Republicans know it.
John McCain is a loser from the start. The McCain-Kennedy amnesty for twelve million illegals is the kiss of death. Republicans will bolt the party before they vote for McCain. Dead in the water.
As they say in horse racing, “It is a weak field.”
This leaves four other possible candidates for the Republican nomination. House Representative Tom Tancredo from Colorado, Representative Duncan Hunter from California, businessman John Cox from Illinois and Lou Dobbs of CNN.
John Cox has his self-financed campaign, which says we “need to penalize employers of illegal immigrants and enforce the law effectively.” This sounds fine, but he has held no elective office and this seems like a vanity campaign.
Rep. Duncan Hunter has declared himself a presidential candidate. He is the former Chairman of the powerful Armed Services Committee and a strong opponent of illegal immigration. But has yet to register his campaign committee or even build a website for his presidential campaign.
This leaves us the favorite of the immigration control movement, Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado. It has been his House Immigration Caucus that has been the single greatest force in stopping the pro-open borders crowd.
Will Tancredo run for office? He has said that he will run if another candidate does not strongly support immigration control. On the other hand, some say that he plans on running for U.S. Senator in Colorado in 2008. Others are saying he definitely plans on running. So, his status can be said to be indeterminate.
Tom Tancredo’s biggest limitation is himself as a candidate, a public figure. Both on television and in person, his campaign style can be called soporific. It is like receiving a lecture from a high school teacher (which he once was) that puts you to sleep. If Tom Tancredo is going to run for President, he had better read a few motivational speaker books and develop a campaign style of some intensity.
Tancredo’s second limitation is his lack of awareness, knowledge or insight into the economics of the United States, which includes the loss of manufacturing, outsourcing, free trade and visas for technical workers. Maybe this is because he is from a non-manufacturing state. But he will have to ramp up his knowledge and concern about trade issues if he is going to be a factor in the industrial states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Michigan.
Lou Dobbs has been the most highly visible Americans on the subjects of illegal immigration and the loss of American jobs. His book War on the Middle Class: How the Government, Big Business, and Special Interest Groups Are Waging War on the American Dream and How to Fight Back established his credentials as a populist American.
Lou Dobbs has gradually transformed himself from the anchor of “Moneyline,” which catered to the business elites of this country to an ardent reformer of the system. Perhaps, Dobbs has returned to his rural roots in Texas as “a kid that grew up poor.” Has he had his fill of hundred dollar lunches at the Four Seasons?
Lou Dobbs appears more than a talking head behind a desk. He has shown his ability to work well with average people. He has shown empathy and voiced the concerns of the middle-class in his weekly program of Town Hall, entitled "War on the Middle Class.” Whether Lou Dobbs will want to leave a lucrative job on cable is a question mark. However, as a young man he left a very lucrative position in banking to become a $75 a week journalist. He seems to be attracted to the action, more than the money. So, it is not as unlikely as it seems that he would leave his network and start down a presidential trail.
Political campaigns are fought on four fronts: Message, Messenger, Machine and Money. If you start with enough money, you can build a political machine. If you take over a political machine, (win a nomination) you can raise the money. The stronger the message and the more believable the candidate, the more likely is success.
Both Tancredo and Dobbs have people on their side who like them and believe their message. Lou Dobbs has a lot of heavy hitter friends in the corporate world that might financially support him, while Tom Tancredo’s base is a solid grass roots of activists across the nation.
Whatever their respective merits, the immigration control needs an active candidate, so let’s hope one or both of them runs for President.
Paul Streitz
Co-director
CT Citizens for Immigration Reform
www.americafirst2008.com
amfirst@optonline.net
Mr. Streitz is author of Oxford: Son of Queen Elizabeth I, The Great American College Tuition Rip-off and America First, Why Americans Must End Free Trade, Stop Outsourcing and Close Our Open Borders. He is also a graduate of the University of Chicago Business School with an MBA in marketing and finance, but he has since recanted his free trade beliefs.
