Former Colorado Congressman and anti-illegal immigration crusader Tom Tancredo has no patience with Republican presidential frontrunner Rick Perry, the Texas governor with the Hollywood hair who fired up the right when he announced his candidacy but who has stumbled under the national spotlight ever since. In the wake of last week’s GOP candidate debate, Tancredo decried Perry as an arrogant “name-calling, open border, pro-amnesty politician.”
In a release sent out by his “Team America” political action committee (“Dedicated to securing our nation’s borders”), Tancredo typically held nothing back, roaring through the release with the kind of rhetorical engine revving that conjures the smell of exhaust and burnt tire rubber. He rang every kind of alarm bell by comparing Perry to both Bush and Obama. Four of the first six sentences of the release end in exclamation points and one with a word in all caps:
Dear Friend,
I need your help getting the word out on Rick Perry. Right now Perry is the Republican frontrunner for president– we can’t let him win! When it comes to immigration the man is George W. Bush’s clone! If Perry gets to the White House we’ll be back to fighting massive blanket amnesty for illegal aliens. You can count on it!
At last week’s presidential debate Perry had the audacity to call those of us who oppose in-state tuition for illegal aliens HEARTLESS!
Perry told moderator Chris Wallace that none of his opponents had worked as hard as he has done on issues of border security and immigration and that the decision to give undocumented college students in-state tuition was a state issue and was voted into law by a vast majority of state legislators.
“If you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than that they have been brought there by no fault of their own I don’t think you have a heart. We need to be educating these children because they will become a drag on our society.”
The exchanges over immigration were perhaps the most heated of the night.
Rick Santorum called Perry a big government leader “worse than Barack Obama.”
The virulent Tancredo attack recalls the disgusted and mocking approach “The Tank” took toward amateur GOP/Tea Party gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes last year before, fed up, Tancredo decided to jump into the race himself. He routinely referred to Maes as naive and ridiculous. He blasted him on the radio and in daily public appearances as not up to the job. The clash helped Democrat John Hickenlooper waltz into office with a landslide victory.
Perry charged up the GOP field last month when he entered the race but he has performed badly in debates, often searching for words and pausing blankly while trying to make points. His attacks on President Obama have also been unoriginal and heavy handed. The timing and substance of a recent attack drew questions about Perry’s awareness of the nation’s geo-political status and interests. On the same day Obama defended Israel at the United Nations by taking an internationally unpopular stand against Palestinian statehood, Perry held a press conference to call the president an “appeaser” of Israel’s enemies.
Tancredo in his release also called into question Perry’s touted record of job creation and did so in typical Tancredo fashion, arguing that many of the new Texas jobs went to illegal aliens.
“Of the jobs Perry created since 2007, 81 percent went to immigrants, 40 percent to illegal immigrants!!”
A larger excerpt from Tancredo’s release:
Obama and Perry-two peas in the immigration pod
… Only those without hearts, Perry said, would be against his 2001 signature legislation which made Texas the first state to give in-state tuition to illegal aliens. This phony compassion didn’t cost Perry a penny-but it’s been costing the taxpayers $100,000 for every illegal alien who took him up on this sweet deal.
The delegates in the hall were astounded at his position and his arrogance, but it came as no surprise to me. Perry has long shown himself to be a name-calling, open border, pro-amnesty politician.
Four years ago I ran for president to pressure the Republican candidates to take a hard line against illegal immigration. For this Perry called me a racist! I called his office and demanded an apology and got nowhere.
That’s when I started to take a closer look at Perry and found an alarming pro-illegal immigrant consistency to both the man’s words and record.
Perry is for open borders and against building a fence: In a speech in Mexico in 2007, Perry said he supported completely open borders, calling for the “free flow of individuals between these two countries who want to work and want to be an asset to our country and to Mexico.” And he came out against building a fence along the U.S.-Mexican border. When in Mexico…
Perry is for massive blanket amnesty: In 2006 Perry came out in favor of blanket amnesty for illegal immigrants, albeit without citizenship, supporting “a guest worker program that takes undocumented workers off the black market and legitimizes their economic contribution.”
Perry opposes Arizona’s tough anti-illegal immigration law: Perry said of Arizona’s tough anti-illegal immigration law, SB 1070, “I have concerns with portions of the law passed in Arizona and believe it would not be the right direction for Texas.”
Perry opposes E-Verify–even for state employees: Last year Perry spoke out against using E-Verify even to prevent illegal immigrants from getting jobs as state employees, who get their paychecks from the taxpayers. He insisted it “would not make a hill of beans’ difference. Maybe not to Perry it wouldn’t–but it would mean a world of difference to some unemployed American workers and their families!
The Governor is running his whole campaign on all the jobs he has created in Texas and says he’ll do the same when he is President. Lets’ hope not! Of the jobs Perry created since 2007, 81% went to immigrants, 40% to illegal immigrants!!
We can’t afford Rick Perry as President. We need someone who will fight to get Americans back to work and our country back on track. Amnesty, in-state tuition, and jobs for illegals, along with open borders, aren’t part of that formula! And neither is Rick Perry.
We can beat Obama next year-but we must do it with a strong leader who will secure our borders, enforce our laws, and never give amnesty to illegal immigrants. Our future depends on it! And Rick Perry will do none of that!
Please help me get the word out about Rick Perry. America can’t afford four more years of a politically pandering, pro-illegal immigrant president-whether they are Republican or Democrat! We need our laws enforced now!
