LATEST: Tom Teancredo was apparently running for President until this afternoon
Colorado congressman/anti-immigration crusader Tom Tancredo, the little candidate that couldn’t, has announced he’s ending his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. Bye, Tom! We’ll miss you! In a field of desperately waffling, eager-to-please rivals, your blunt racism, apoplectic rage, and gnomelike stature were endlessly entertaining.
I’m going to have to fess up. I’m actually going to miss Tom Tancredo being in the field of GOP Presidential wannabes. After all, the guy was nothing if not a comedy gold mine, because you never knew what sort of crazy, wacked-out $#!% was going to emanate from his pointy li’l haid. ‘Course, the fact that Tancredo’s a troglodyte of the first order and seems to be fueled by prodigious amounts of animus and ignorance only seemed to increase his appeal to the rabid, uber-religious, holier-than-thou, White-makes-right, Arbeit-macht-frei wing of the Republican Party…not that there aren’t plenty of candidates looking to pick up the slack. Et tu, Mike Huckabee?
Tancredo might have actually been able to accomplish something (probably involving concentration camps and summary executions), but apparently he just couldn’t summon enough hatred and vitriol to get any traction. It’s got to be tough to maintain a campaign and energize the faithful when all you really have to offer is a not-so-very-original desire to demonize Brown People. Blaming immigrants for virtually all the ills this nation faces, from terrorism to the weakened dollar to our (&^%$#-up health care system may be good copy, but it’s no going to feed the bulldog.
Hating the not-White and not-religious is frankly a pretty lousy foundation to build a political movement on. Not even Republicans harbor enough hatred to create a solid and sizable voting bloc…not that there aren’t those out there willing to delude themselves into thinking otherwise. Creating and maintaining the hatred and vitriol necessary to fuel a campaign like Tancredo’s takes a skilled, intelligent, and perceptive propagandist…and when last I checked, Karl Rove was otherwise engaged. Really, Tom Tancredo just doesn’t have the ‘nads or the wherewithal to not only start the fire, but to fan the flames into a conflagration large enough to build a viable nationwide candidacy.
If Tancredo had been running for President of the Minutemen or the John Birch Society, he’d no doubt win in a landslide. Thankfully, there just aren’t enough of those unbalanced wackjobs out there to make Tancredo anything more than just an entertaining novelty.
So long, Tom. We brealy knew ye…and verily, some of us are exceedingly thankful for that. This nation has seen enough divisiveness and thuggery over the last seven years. The time for you and yours has come and gone.
I hear the Minutemen are looking for a few good men, though….
