Tancredo drops out, endorses Romney

I'm not sure if Romney would even want this guy's endorsement. However, who remembers this priceless moment? Anyway, Tancredo will be remembered (briefly) by his ridiculous and offensive ad campaign.

ABC News...

Rep. Tom Tancredo announced Thursday he is dropping out of the race for the GOP presidential nomination and endorsing rival Mitt Romney.

Tancredo, a five-term congressman from Colorado, has consistently polled at the bottom of the nine-person Republican field. He based his campaign on fighting illegal immigration and has run television ads that link lax border control to terrorist attacks, rape and other crimes.

He announced his withdrawal in downtown Des Moines two weeks before Iowa begins the presidential nominating process with the state's precinct caucuses.

LINK: Tancredo Drops Bid for White House

RELATED READING...

LINK: Washington Post: Transcripts: Tancredo Announces Decision to Exit Presidential Race

Well, with Tommy Thompson, Brownback, Gilmore, and now Tancredo all out, this only leaves the five "frontrunners" (Guiliani, McCain, Romney, Fred Thompson, and Huckabee) and Ron Paul. And of course, Tancredo clone / Ann Coulter's pick: Duncan Hunter. Oh yeah, and resident crazy, Alan Keyes... But whatever happened to Michael Savage's run? His poll is still up on his website.

Ah, Tancredo dropped out before it was too late.

-Mr. Joseph

Why Tancredo Makes Me Laugh

First, a picture is worth a thousand words...

A Picture of the GOP on Civil Rights

" The one photo the GOP does not want anyone to see was snapped at yesterday’s NAACP GOP Presidential Candidate Forum. The NAACP invited all 9 Republican candidates to the forum, but only one showed up: Tom Tancredo. All the Democratic Presidential hopefuls showed up for their forum. "

LINK: What if you held a debate and *almost* no one came?

Then, there is this feud between him and the other Far-Right extremist, Sam Brownback.

I heard somewhere that Tancredo is considering dropping out of the race. However I cannot find the link to the story. Did anyone else here this? I thought it was a NewsMax story. Maybe I was wrong.

-Mr. Joseph

UPDATE (8/10/07):
Apparently, Sam Brownback is fighting with Mike Huckabee now. This is in addition to his constant attacks on Mitt Romney. Brownback is quite the fighter.

Gilmore drops out of 2008 race

From the Politico...

Former Virginia Gov. James S. Gilmore III is dropping his underdog bid for the Republican presidential nomination today, he told The Politico in an interview.

Gilmore said he has been approached about running for Virginia governor a second time, and about running for U.S. Senate if Sen. John W. Warner (R) retires. Gilmore said he will consider both options. Reflecting his long-held interest in Old Dominion politics, he said he will start a political action committee to support Republicans running for the state senate and House of Delegate.

In the interview, Gilmore said the punishing financial requirements of the early-starting race caused him to decide it was "impractical" to continue. "Because of the front-loading of the primaries, I would have basically had to stop campaigning and spend full time organizing hundreds of people to raise money for me," he said.

Gilmore's campaign issued a statement in which he said: "I have come to believe that it takes more than a positive vision for our nation's future to successfully compete for the presidency. I believe that it takes years of preparation to put in place both the political and financial infrastructure to contest what amounts to a one-day national primary in February."

Gilmore said he made the decision in the past 48 hours on the basis of "an assessment of where I could do the most good for the country and the state of Virginia." He said he has not made a decision about endorsing one of his rivals, but said he would not rule it out.

Gilmore had offered himself as the "consistent conservative" and heir to Ronald Reagan in a field that has left many Republican activists dissatisfied. He is the first GOP candidate to leave the race. He said he will continue to speak out on issues like homeland security and terrorism, subjects that he emphasized in debates.

Other candidates commanded much more cash and attention, keeping Gilmore a distant also-ran. Financial reports this weekend showed he had little hope of cracking the top tier. Gilmore raised $170,000 in the first three months of the year and said he collected $211,000 in the quarter ending June 30, while the leading candidates in the race banked millions.

In Gilmore's successful race for a four-year term for Virginia governor in 1997, he showed the popular appeal of fiscal conservativism with his "no car tax" pledge to reduce the commonwealth's personal property tax.

While in office, he served briefly as chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Gilmore is a lawyer who has made counterterrorism and homeland security his specialties since leaving office. An Army veteran and son of a Safeway meat cutter, he rose as an outsider in the clubby world of Richmond law, becoming Henrico County commonwealth's attorney and state attorney general. He was the first chairman of a congressionally appointed commission on terrorism that became known as the Gilmore Commission.

LINK: Gilmore drops out of the race

With Vilsack and Gilmore out, (and Tancredo considering it) will the number of '08 candidates start to limit itself? Hillary and Edwards think so (but Dodd and Kucinich are pissed).

-Mr. Joseph

Another Right-Wing '08 Candidate

From the Denver Post...

Colorado Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo declared his candidacy for the 2008 presidential election this morning on a radio talk show in Des Moines, Iowa.

Tancredo's candidacy will be focused almost entirely on immigration issues, which he hopes to bring to the forefront among the leading Republican candidates of Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Sen. John McCain.

The Littleton Republican is one of the nation's most outspoken critics of allowing Mexicans and Central Americans to cross the border and obtain jobs in the United States. He is a staunch supporter of erecting an impenetrable fence along the 2,000-mile border. He also believes the government should sanction employers who hire undocumented workers, reasoning that the jobs would dry up and the workers would return home.

Tancredo also favors lowering the pace of legal immigration. He has said that slowing all immigration would give people who have come to this country a chance to better assimilate, to learn the language and to do what he considers other important cultural touchstones.

"The outpouring of support we have received over the past three months has been tremendous and, frankly, it has far exceeded what I anticipated," Tancredo said this morning.

"Republicans want a candidate who is a conservative with no ifs, ands, or buts. Clearly, the current top tier of Republican candidates is not filling the bill.

"Wherever I go, Americans of all backgrounds and political beliefs thank me for standing up for them against the establishment politicians who are selling out our nation. These good people feel abandoned by those in Washington and justifiably so. They have the right to be represented in this race and I am determined to be there for them," Tancredo said.

Tancredo is known for his inflammatory rhetoric, such as saying that the U.S. should consider bombing Mecca if there were another terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

Last year, while at a conservative conference in South Florida, he said that parts of Miami resembled a third world country. That triggered outrage from residents and a response from then Gov. Jeb Bush.

Tancredo tried to visit Miami a short time later to talk about his comments but had to cancel when the restaurant hosting the event retracted permission, saying it feared a media onslaught and potential for violence. There had been scores of threatening phone calls, and workers at the restaurant also complained about Tancredo.

LINK: Tancredo chases White House

And another one to bite the dust...
-Mr. Joseph