[NYTr] Can Anti-Immigration Fervor Keeps Tancredo in the Race?

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

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The Washington Post - Aug 11, 2007

Walking A Hard Line On Campaign Trail in Iowa

Can Anti-Immigration Fervor Keep Tancredo in the Race?

By Sridhar Pappu

DES MOINES -- From a hill in a park an hour and a half away from Des 
Moines, one can see buffalo grazing on a field below. The morning sky 
has darkened with rain clouds and a light wind brushes nearby corn.
This is summer in the Midwest, a reminder, somehow, of what our country
is, and of who we think we are.

Ron Duncan, a 65-year-old retired truck driver, and his wife, Connie, 
step out of their RV on Wednesday. They pass for an advance team for
the presidential campaign of five-term Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.). For
a couple of weeks, they've set up signs and banners and made sure there 
are enough stickers for those who show up to hear the man whose hard 
line against illegal immigration and its runoff issues has made him a 
catalyst for many here in the heart of the heart of the country.

"A year ago I saw all these people marching with foreign flags in the 
immigration protests and decided to get off my recliner," Ron explains 
as he puts up a banner at the front of the driveway of the education 
center in Swan Lake State Park. "I asked what happened to the culture I 
grew up in. When I heard this man, I decided this was a man I could
follow."

Connie wears an ankle-length denim skirt and, like her husband, a 
T-shirt that reads: "I'm a Member of Tom's Army Against Amnesty!" She 
shares Ron's devotion not only to Tancredo, but to halting a Latin 
American invasion. It's an assault, they say, not only against native 
blue-collar workers unwilling to take lower wages, but on the idea of 
the United States itself.

"He really has the concerns of America at heart," Connie says of 
Tancredo. "He's concerned about the culture of America itself. What's 
happening to the bedrock of American culture."

In another time, the Duncans might be just another couple working for a 
candidate as a way of passing the time before the Hawkeyes and Cyclones 
begin their football seasons in Iowa City and Ames. But during a summer 
when an immigration bill supported by the Democratic leadership and a 
Republican president died after nationwide protest, their man's 
second-tier candidacy gained attention. The question regarding Tancredo 
is simple: Is one issue able to push a campaign to new heights? Will it 
serve him well in today's Ames straw poll? And should Rudy or Mitt or 
Fred or John be worried?

 From a distance it's easy to say no. Tancredo has little money and a 
young staff largely without political experience. Often during the 
televised debates, he's pushed off to the side. One couldn't blame 
Tancredo if he decided to play Tetris on his cellphone while waiting
for the moderator's question.

But it's here, on the ground, that the 61-year-old former civics
teacher finds people willing to not only listen but enlist in his
cause. Speaking to largely older crowds in town halls, he mostly
ignores Iraq and Darfur and universal health care. Where he reaches
them is in his pledge to drive the nation's 12 million to 20 million
illegal immigrants back to their native homes. He speaks against
bilingual education, calling English the glue that "holds the country
together."

In his stops -- attended by anywhere from 20 to 100 people -- he reads
a letter from a woman unable to find crew socks in a California
Wal-Mart until she finds a black worker, who, unlike her co-workers,
knows the language. He talks about crime and the influx of drugs, and
of a nation whose sovereignty has been compromised. He shakes his head
at a bilingual edition of an Iowa paper and proudly reads the beginning
of a newspaper story about an illegal immigrant in Colorado having to
return to Mexico because of stepped-up requirements for authentic
documentation.

Then comes Bay. Yes, Bay Buchanan -- the onetime treasurer of the
United States under Ronald Reagan who managed her brother Pat's three
bids for the presidency. Yes, that Bay -- the woman who cuts a swath
the size of a small Latin American country in any room she enters with
the sleek appearance of a debutante and the loud, impassioned voice of
a South Side Chicago ward boss.

As the woman who convinced Tancredo to run, Buchanan -- who quit her
gig on CNN to do this -- not only serves as his campaign chairwoman but 
almost as his co-candidate. Following each Tancredo speech, she will 
address the crowd, urging, pleading, begging for people to attend the 
Ames straw poll while lashing out against the established candidates.
At one event, her book "The Extreme Makeover of Hillary (Rodham)
Clinton" was set out next to Tancredo's "In Mortal Danger: The Battle
for America's Border and Security." Both were given away in exchange
for a donation.

" 'Partners' is the word I would use," Buchanan says of her campaign 
role. "We work very well together."

"You need the cause," she says, speaking of the campaign's focus on 
illegal immigration. "The cause will get them out to the straw poll
when they're not feeling well, and we have a cause. I want to come
slowly and come over the top. I want to be the one coming up. I want
the other guy looking over his shoulder."

An easy banter exists between them beyond the stage. Sitting down for a 
quick lunch following the Swan Lake event, Tancredo says, "I wonder
when Fred Thompson's gonna make his announcement?"

"Labor Day is the latest day he's giving us," Buchanan says.

When someone interjects that the late start date could be attributed to 
"Law & Order," the NBC program Thompson recently left, Buchanan says, 
"He gets money from the reruns. Because of the rules, they'd have to 
give equal time. They would have to put Tom on. Tom on all the time."

"Except they'd make me the rapist he's arresting or something,"
Tancredo says.

"No, you'd be the suspect," Buchanan says. "At the end of the show you 
might be redeemed."

* * *

It's unclear what constitutes redemption for Tancredo. He says he is a 
pariah to his party. According to Tancredo, Bush adviser Karl Rove once 
called him a traitor to the president and to Republicans, and said that 
Tancredo should never again "darken the doorstep to the White House."

Tancredo's devotion to a single cause seems to energize him. On 
Wednesday evening, marching in the parade through downtown Des Moines 
kicking off the Iowa State Fair, Tancredo, dressed in a short-sleeved 
checkered shirt and a white baseball cap, runs ahead of his supporters 
and the black Corvette that follows him blasting patriotic songs. The 
crowd response, dampened by rain, is tepid at best. Surrounded by 
volunteers in their T-shirts, Tancredo will sprint to a bystander 
whenever there's a hint of recognition.

"How's it going?" one man says, hugging him.

"You ever talk to a candidate that says things are going bad?"

"Well," the man replies, "my son and I thank you for speaking your mind 
and for your courage."

When a few Mike Huckabee supporters call him over, they chide him for 
liking Mexican food.

"You ever check the kitchen?" one says.

"If I did," Tancredo replies, "I'd never get served."

Returning to the group, Tancredo, who's been away from his Colorado
home for nearly a month and misses his wife, says, "Boy, we've been
looking for some good Mexican food down here, I'll tell ya." As it
happens, he's fond of anecdotes about his grandfather being an
immigrant from Italy.

The following day Tancredo sits down in the town square in Oskaloosa to 
smoke a cheap cigar he'd picked up at a Walgreens "somewhere in Iowa." 
He's just come from a town hall where he addressed roughly 45 people, 
and where Ray Batchelder, an 81-year-old retired farmer said: "This man 
here speaks my language. I'm a Democrat, but this man makes a lot of 
sense. This is the right solution for this border problem: Shoot the 
first five and the next 1,000 won't come. But that goes against my 
teachings as a Christian."

When asked about running solely on the immigration issue, Tancredo 
replies, "First of all, it's not an issue, it's a phenomenon. Second,
at least I have one. You know, I have something people can gravitate 
towards, can see. I think when you try and be a Renaissance man it 
doesn't work, especially when there's this underlying current of
feeling about this out there."

Looking out at the small stores in this small town, Tancredo says, 
"Sure, there's that nostalgic part of me that idealizes an America that 
probably never existed. But, an America more homogeneous, yes. It is
not a white America, which is something I've heard people attacking me
for all the time. We've always been a nation made up of so many
different people, but it seemed to me there was more of an attempt to
assimilate. So yeah, I long for that. Can we put this genie back in the
bottle? I don't know. I have to try."

* * *

As much as he is a passionate gadfly, Tancredo knows his limits.
Today's straw poll will answer whether or not a single issue,
particularly this issue, is strong enough to push a man onward to
something besides a punch line. He's conceded the victory to Romney,
who has devoted significant resources to winning the Ames poll.

"If we can't show up in the top half of the crowd, even if we want to
go forward it will be very, very difficult," he acknowledges, putting
down his cigar. "The financial support will be tough and if you're not 
personally wealthy, how do you do this? It's more of a practical 
reality. I have to do well enough so I can keep the oar in the water, 
otherwise the boat comes to a stop."

At least for the remaining hours before the straw poll, Tancredo,
pushed by Buchanan, seems unwilling to pull back the oar, to let others
pass him by. That evening in the immaculate town of Pella, which owes
most of its architecture to its Dutch beginnings, including a 134-foot
windmill and working drawbridge, Tancredo arrives in the back room of a
Pizza Ranch. Both Tancredo and Buchanan greet the 100 or so people.

In the corner, holding her 7-week-old grandson Maddox, Evie Jones
echoes Tancredo's sentiments.

"I'm in health care," says the 55-year-old respiratory therapist, "and
I see insurance costs rising. And from what I hear it's the costs of 
illegals. They're a burden."

Waiting in line for pizza, Vicki LeMay, a school psychologist, says:
"It makes no sense we're sending people across the ocean when our
borders are so open. If they're here legally, that's one thing. But
they haven't gone through the proper channels. And it's a lie to say we
don't have enough workers."

Tancredo offers up the anecdotes about the socks and the poultry plant 
in Georgia that did just fine after its illegal workers were hauled
off. He tries to align his sentiments with the anger in the room.

He says that anti-American sentiments expressed in a mosque or street 
corner should be treated as acts of sedition. For the moment he's able 
to bundle the complaints about security and jobs, about schooling and 
amnesty. He seems to tap into the anger these people, these Americans,
have.

"I wonder how many people today appreciate what citizenship is all 
about," Tancredo says, "whether the term even means anything anymore. 
Because we're willing to give it away. We're willing to let people have 
all of the benefits of citizenship even if they broke into this
country."

"This is our home," he goes on to say. "But what happens when you come 
home and the house is full of people you don't even know? Is there 
nothing strange about this? Shouldn't I feel a little bit upset about 
this? This is my home, my country. Why should I be made to feel guilty 
about being upset when people come into it without our permission?"