Tancredo's Ad

Garance seems shocked that this Tom Tancredo ad would actually air in Iowa:

To me, it's not surprising at all. I used to think that 2008 was going to see a Tancredo surge based on his ability to tap into grassroots loathing of brown-skinned people on the home front as well as in foreign policy. But then came the comprehensive reform fiasco which happened early enough in the race to get all the mainstream candidates on the anti-immigration bandwagon, so as a result Tancredo needs to escalate his rhetoric to stay relevant.

Comments

Is that the same guy who does those beer commercial voice-overs?

Posted by Bill | November 13, 2007 11:21 AM

For Miller High Life?

Posted by Bill | November 13, 2007 11:22 AM

I hear his next ad will be a little girl pulling the petals off a daisy while counting down: diez, nueve, ocho.....

Posted by MikeJ | November 13, 2007 11:25 AM

Regardless wouldn't you expect that Tancredo would catch a bit more fire?

It seems to me that anti-immigration advocates headed by Dobbs have managed to convince us all that immigration is a hot-button issue which outrages people. And yet this fails to translate whenever there's actual people voting.

There are outraged people alright. But they are a vocal organized minority. The problem with passing immigration reform aren't the overall numbers; it's lack of organization of the pro-immigration forces.

Posted by Nick Kaufman | November 13, 2007 11:26 AM

For someone who makes her living covering politics, obvious things sure seem to surprise Garance a lot.

Posted by Rob | November 13, 2007 11:35 AM

In defense of Garance here, that ad really is pretty shocking. Without prior knowledge, I would think it was some sort of over the top parody or skit by SNL or something. For all the current immigration phobia, some of it based on labor issues, you very rarely here the "they're taking our jobs!" complaint explicitly except when liberals are parodying Dobbs and his ilk. But this ad flat out accuses the brown folk of stealing jobs from honest upright Americans.

I thought Vernon Robinson's ads from the 2006 elections were some parody concocted by the Daily Show until I learned that they too were completely serious. I have little respect for the GOP and American conservatives in general and have incredibly low expectations but the current problems ailing that camp have exposed a core that is much more retrograde and reactionary then I originally thought.

Posted by DRR | November 13, 2007 11:49 AM

Is that the same guy who does those beer commercial voice-overs?

I thought it was a parody of the Bookman guy from Seinfeld (the library cop).

Posted by McKingford | November 13, 2007 11:53 AM

Tancredo can't stand Bush and he's rather public about it, that's why he gets no love in primary, they are all Bush obsessed.

Posted by tom.a | November 13, 2007 11:57 AM

Garance seems shocked...

Garance honestly mystifies me sometimes.

Posted by jonnybutter | November 13, 2007 12:04 PM

"Regardless wouldn't you expect that Tancredo would catch a bit more fire?"

It's more than moderately hard to 'catch fire' when your signature issue is one the MSM are virtually unanimous about being for the other side of. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's a major handicap, and clearly one Tancredo isn't up to overcoming.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | November 13, 2007 12:04 PM

DRR:
Where have you been? They don't call him "Crazy' Tom Tancredo for nothing. If you knew anything about Tancredo at all, even just from CNN, you'd know this ad was par for the course for him. Hell, Tancredo has the KKK look about him.

Rob:
You are right. It's like she never even watches CNN or something. This isn't anything new for Tancredo. This has been his pet issue for a few years now.

Posted by Joe Klein's conscience | November 13, 2007 12:08 PM

The reason there hasn't been a Tancredo surge is that the people who make up his natural constituency all think he's a Mexican. If his name were Jones, he'd be up there with Giuliani at this point.

Posted by Tom Hilton | November 13, 2007 12:21 PM

Slimy Brett Bell-less, striving to be more racist than even Tancredo can be.

Posted by Jennifer | November 13, 2007 12:42 PM

There are two simple reasons why Tancredo hasn't "caught fire".

First, Romney and Giuliani -- despite their previous amnesty policies -- have embraced the Tancredo's main issue, that our immigration laws should be enforced (on the other side of this issue stand George W. Bush and Matt Yglesias, who, unlike 80% of Republicans, don't hate brown people).

Second, Tancredo's performance in the debates has been abysmal. He has been inarticulate on the issue he is most passionate about.

Posted by Fred | November 13, 2007 12:43 PM

Actually, to be fair to Grance, maybe this is rhetorical, not actual, shock. I don't know what 'rhetorical shock' *is*, but we can't hear her tone of voice in that blog post, so...maybe that's it.

Posted by jonnybutter | November 13, 2007 12:46 PM

Have to second Fred. How can he catch fire when everyone else on the stage has come over to his side on the issue? Even those who were previously moderates (Huckabee, Giuliani, McCain) have taken up the tough anti-amnesty rhetoric. And for those who are paying more attention and want an anti-illegal-immigration candidate who didn't just take up the banner yesterday, there's still several choices. You can't run on a single issue like this when the issue does nothing to set you apart. You'd get more traction running as a pro-immigration candidate (even though that's an unpopular stance in the Republican party) - at least you'd have your 10-15% of the Republicans to yourself.

Posted by bbartlog | November 13, 2007 12:53 PM

The reason there hasn't been a Tancredo surge is that the people who make up his natural constituency all think he's a Mexican. If his name were Jones, he'd be up there with Giuliani at this point.

Posted by Tom Hilton

Brilliant. Hadn't thought of that. Yet totally obvious. Wonder if it's true? I.e., 'What kind of a damn name is Tancredo anyway?'

Posted by El Cid | November 13, 2007 12:54 PM

I don't think Garance is shocked at all that Tancredo would produce such an ad. I think she's shocked that it would actually air.

Posted by Tom Hilton | November 13, 2007 12:56 PM

"It's more than moderately hard to 'catch fire' when your signature issue is one the MSM are virtually unanimous about being for the other side of."

Or maybe Republican primary voters are cynical about the whole issue. The Republicans has six years to do something about it and did nothing about it.

Posted by Shawn | November 13, 2007 1:05 PM

Bill - I think you're right about the voiceover but all I could think of was the South Park episode with the aliens from the future - "They took our jobs!!!"

Posted by phg | November 13, 2007 1:12 PM

So, basically, MattY is saying that a large portion of the GOP "grassroots loath[es] brown-skinned people" and isn't concerned about things like terrorist infiltration. It's not difficult to imagine MattY hand-waving away any concerns about such infiltration by playing the race card.

And, people actually trust anything MattY says?

The fact remains that tens of thousands of people from "SpecialInterest" countries have snuck into the U.S. (Iraq, Iran, etc.), a couple smugglings rings for MiddleEasterners have been broken up (including one that - shock! - bribed a Mexican official), and two Hezb. members were arrested after having snuck into the U.S. a year earlier. And, both Dem and GOP Congresspersons have warned about TerroristInfiltration, such as by MiddleEasterners posing as Mexicans. And, there's a significant % of Latin Americans that are Muslims and there are even terrorist areas in Latin America.

For more, how about reading the 911Commission StaffReport (not the main report), or this PDF. Or, see my category just about this issue.

In trying to understand why MattY would so strongly support illegal immigration, the only conclusion I can reach is that he's being a good Democrat and trying to help them gain voters. I don't think he has an ideological basis for loose borders. MattY is, in a word, corrupt. He should just go the extra step and, like many others, get paid for his efforts.

Posted by TLB | November 13, 2007 1:18 PM

Shorter Tancredo/TLB/et al: "Brown people make me poop myself."

Posted by James F. Elliott | November 13, 2007 1:22 PM

"The Republicans has six years to do something about it and did nothing about it."

Shawn,

The problem with this talking point is that the Republican President for the last six years did try to do something about illegal immigration -- except that it was the opposite of what the vast majority of Republicans wanted. So the base put the heat on Congress and the Bush's "comprehensive" amnesty bill went down in flames. This dog won't hunt for Dems next year. Everyone who was paying attention to this issue (and that includes the whole GOP) knows that Bush and the Democrats were on the same side of the immigration issue.

Posted by Fred | November 13, 2007 1:26 PM

I understand the basis of Matt's supposition that Tancredo's race baiting would work. But I don't think he is quite seeing why it didn't work. In the same way that feminists often seem to ignore how successful they have been since the 1970s, liberals - black and white - often seem to ignore how successfully they have changed certain deeply held racist attitudes in the U.S. It has been a rather amazing change, really - comparable to the movement, after the French revolution, to actually make the French speak French (most of the French population spoke varying patois, often incomprehensible to others of their fellow countrymen).

Because the idea of planned change has been pretty successfully undermined by the attacks of the Hayekians on the right and the left's libertarian strain, when a planned change does come about, it occurs in a blind spot. This is bad, insofar as such changes are fragile. But the change in attitude that was provoked by changes in law and massive changes in education - it didn't just spontaneously occur - might just be at the root of the minority status of the minority haters. Among working class white males - which the media traditionally loves to highlight for archaic attitudes - I would guess there is much more integration during work time and even leisure time than among the 'elites' - who seem much more homogeneous to me. And if there is fear of the 'tide of brown skins', I'd guess it is a fear that has its locus further up the economic ladder. But even there, the massive changes wrought by education have done their work - that fear dares not completely speak its name.

This isn't to say you can't find a lot of, say, web sites - such as LGF - where racism is the standard currency. Just that this is a marginal discursive set. How was it marginalized? After all, this was the dominant tone for two hundred years in the U.S.

Maybe there is a lesson there for liberals who so often are seemingly ashamed of their past. To completely accede to the critique of planning - that first step in the march to neo-liberalism - is a mistake.

Posted by roger | November 13, 2007 1:29 PM

Fred,

I don't remember him trying to do anything about it 'til the Democrats took back both houses of Congress. He could have pushed for the same program during his first six years in office (and but for 9/11, he likely whould have pushed for a guest-worker type of program). Conversely, the Republican leadership in Congress at the time could have gone to the president and laid it all on the line and pushed for something substantive to be done. Instead, inertia held sway as neither branch's GOP leadership really did much of anything on this issue, even after 9/11. I don't think the GOP's base is apathetic about this issue, I just think that they place the blame on their own leaders as much as anyone else. Politically, that translates into the issue being less than the "wedge" that Tancredo & co. hoped it would be.

Posted by Shawn | November 13, 2007 2:11 PM

A little nuance would go a long way here. There is a lot of rhetorical ground available between Tancredo's position (Racist and proud of it!) and Matt's (Everyone who even thinks about immigration restrictions is just as racist as Tancredo!).

It's not so incredible that most people, even most Republicans, can simultaneously think Tancredo is nut and that Matt is too quick to see racists in every shadow. Just to amplify roger's point (the one about racism, not about central planning), the sort of racist that Matt believes make up the majority of republican voters are in fact extremely rare in this country.
There's still too much racism, of course, but it's not a guiding pincipal for anyone but the fringes. Everyone else is more worried about the economy, or health care, or national defense. There are precious few votes available for being more racist than other candidates advocating a particular policy. It's just not a political winner anymore.

Posted by heedless | November 13, 2007 2:26 PM

The problem with the anti-immigration folks is simple:

There is one very effective way of cutting illegal immigration: extremely harsh employer sanctions.

But the moneyed interests behind the Right luv that cheap labor.

So the Right ain't gonna do anything about it except try to use it as a get-out-the-vote issue.

Posted by liberal | November 13, 2007 2:33 PM

Shawn: Bush was pushing for "reform" before 9/11. After that he put it aside (the MexicanGovernment wasn't happy about that). In early 2004 he began a new push. And, in fact, his plans could have been used by the Democrats to win. Unfortunately, they were (and are) too corrupt to support what's in the best interests of the U.S.

See this 2004 video for just how much of a softball Bush gave the Dems. I mean, if you can't come out against a plan to open the entire U.S. labor market to the world, perhaps it's time to disband your party.

Posted by TLB | November 13, 2007 2:39 PM

"liberal": The "moneyed interests behind the Right" also fund the Dems and Dem-linked racial power groups like the NCLR. And, those "moneyed interests" include the MexicanGovernment; that government has a long series of direct or indirect links to major non-profits (ACLU, SPLC, etc.) and Democratic politicians. One Democrat state senator even serves at the same time on an advisory committee to Mexico's president.

And, every time that a "liberal" like MattY plays the race card, he assists those "moneyed interests" to make money.

Posted by TLB | November 13, 2007 2:43 PM

At one time I thought it insane to think that paranoia was the equivalent of policy.

Who's insane now, eh?

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | November 13, 2007 3:02 PM

"Shawn: Bush was pushing for "reform" before 9/11. After that he put it aside (the MexicanGovernment wasn't happy about that). In early 2004 he began a new push. And, in fact, his plans could have been used by the Democrats to win. Unfortunately, they were (and are) too corrupt to support what's in the best interests of the U.S."

TLB,

On your first point, I agree, and if I didn't say as much I certainly strongly implied that he (Wubya) was pushing for a change to immigration policy prior to 9/11. However, as to him "giving" the Dems in Congress a "softball", remember that it was the Republicans who were in the majority in 2004. And considering how partisan Le Marteau and Company were, it's not as if any Democrat was in a position to act on any "offer" from the president.

My view remains that however distrustful many on the Right are of the Dems on illegal immigration, they still seem to take a dim veiw of the Republican Party's leadership on this issue. Republicans controlled the national political stage for six years and yet they could not do anything to change our current policies on illegal immigaration. And, sure, Republican candidates will offer boilerplate on "sanctuary cities" and the like, but this it's still not the issue (that would be, IMO, stopping Hil and Bill). If it were, it would've been a more effective vote-getter for VA Republicans. Instead, they lost the State House to the Democrats.

Again, there's no denying real frustration exists on a grass-roots level, but that's tempered with the Republican's rank-and-file distrusting their own party on the issue. Couple that with current anxiety over, oh, say, Iraq, Iran, gas prices, the real estate market, and the economy in general, and suddenly illegal immigration isn't the hot button issue that it might've been. Deny all of this if you like, but wishing won't make the situation change.

But, hey, if you can link Mexicans to the subprime market's collapse, you may yet have a winner. ;)

Posted by Shawn | November 13, 2007 3:16 PM

Shawn,

As long as the president disagreed with the GOP base on immigration, there was little the base could expect to do but keep him from passing an amnesty bill. In fact, they did more than that: they got a bill passed to build 700 miles of fencing along the Mexican border and double the number of border guards.

Dems can't run against Bush on this issue because Bush is on the same side of the issue as Democrats. The GOP base knows this, and won't vote for another candidate who is pro-amnesty. That's why McCain's support tanked after he supported the Bush-Kennedy immigration bill.

Posted by Fred | November 13, 2007 3:25 PM

Fred,

Bush's leadership - or lack thereof - helped to make him an outlier within the Republican party on this issue. Still, what about Tom DeLay and Company? Did they really press that hard to put the issue before the public? I don't seem to recall this being the case. Also, I seem to recall some traditionally conservative outlets like the WSJ editorial page arguing in favor of a guest worker program. Also, take a look at how much money interest groups representing the construction and agricultural industries have donated to Republicans in the past. I'll grant you the last set of numbers I saw was for 2002. Still, it was about 60/40 split for the Republicans. All of this contributes to an air of cynicism. The fact remains that there's enough doubt among the rank-and-file of the Republican party to blunt illegal immigration's effectiveness as a "wedge" issue.

Posted by Shawn | November 13, 2007 3:58 PM

Shawn,

Please follow along:

1) Bush disagrees with the GOP base on immigration.

2) Bush tried hard to pass his version of immigration reform -- twice. Once in 2006, when Republicans were still the majority in Congress, and then again earlier this year. Both times he was defeated by an uproar from the GOP grass roots.

3) Bills to strengthen enforcement were passed (not as much as anti-illegal immigration advocates wanted, but progress nonetheless).

4) Tancredo and other opponents of illegal immigration in Congress had no chance of accomplishing more when they faced resistance from a Republican president, key Republican Senators (e.g., McCain) and the whole Democratic Party.

5) No Democratic talking point is going to confuse the issue for Republicans: they know who was for amnesty and who was against it, and they will vote against the open-borders candidates, whatever their party affiliation.

Posted by Fred | November 13, 2007 4:55 PM

For someone who makes her living covering politics, obvious things sure seem to surprise Garance a lot.

If anything, that's an understatement.

Garance doesn't even need to travel to the wilds of Iowa. She could've gone to some "town hall" events right here in the Beltway, and heard people (even "people of color") ranting about the goddam illegals and how they're having too many kids and stealing all our hard-earned tax dollars. I got a certain mordant amusement out of that, since it echoed almost verbatim the very same things I grew up hearing in the white suburbs of Detroit about those people on the other side of Eight Mile Road.

Maybe Garance et al might consider rubbing elbows with people outside the cloister. The sheltered Ivy League-->Beltway conveyor belt isn't exactly exactly yielding a higher quality gasbag, is it?

Posted by sglover | November 13, 2007 5:15 PM

Fred,

Never mind.

Musn't feed the trolls any longer.

Posted by Shawn | November 13, 2007 5:21 PM

I'm not surprised at all. In fact, I suspect Tancredo may have received local input supporting the ad. After 9/11, malls in my area DID institute security lines and check all backpacks. The improbability of Al Qaeda going to great lengths to bomb obscure malls in small-town Iowa never seems to have occurred to them.

Posted by Blue in IA | November 13, 2007 7:00 PM

Garance also seems to have forgotten that Iowa is the state which gave us Rep. Steve King, (in)famous for the electrified border fence, Abu Ghraib is just hazing, and Baghdad is safer than Washington. There's a proven constituency for alarmist xenophobic nutbars, sadly.

Posted by Blue in IA | November 13, 2007 7:09 PM

Shawn,

Are you sure you weren't being the troll on this thread? Think about it.

Posted by Fred | November 13, 2007 9:47 PM

I'm just laughing at how lost a terrorist would have to be to make them decide a mall in Iowa would be a good target. London, Spain, Russia... Cedar Rapids. Ha!

Posted by daveNYC | November 13, 2007 11:02 PM

Jennifer, you lying, Anglo-hating racist. You vile racist scum.

Posted by Glaivester | November 13, 2007 11:35 PM