0 comment Thursday, June 5, 2014 | admin
The Tom Tancredo File
Dimitri Vassilaros of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports on Tancredo's candidacy:
If enough voters in the primaries want to stop the illegals' invasion, Rep. Tom Tancredo could be the Republican nominee. And then if enough voters on Election Day want a leader who will defend American sovereignty, well, the Colorado conservative just might win.
"Conservative" as in a lifetime rating of 99 by the American Conservative Union since he became a congressman in 1998. It's the organization's highest rating among announced presidential candidates.
[...]
Frank Newport, editor in chief of The Gallup Poll, notes Tancredo has no national name identification. "But a single issue can be a useful device to get name recognition. If it can propel someone to win the nomination is an open question."
Most Americans will support more border security, but more than 50 percent also want some sort of pathway to citizenship, he says.
"(Tancredo) has very little chance to secure the nomination because you have some big names in the primary," says pollster John Zogby, president and CEO of Zogby International. "It's hard to see a one-issue person succeeding against Rudy Giuliani or John McCain. On the other hand, there is a substantial number of conservatives telling us they're disappointed there are no real conservatives (in the race)."
First of all, I take isse with Newport's poll showing that 'more than 50 percent' of Americans want 'some sort of pathway to citizenship', in other words, amnesty, or 'earned citizenship' or whatever the euphemism du jour is. If the responses indicated that, I have to ask how exactly the questions were phrased; I suspect that the questions were framed in an ambiguous way, so that respondents did not understand that amnesty was the issue.
And secondly I disagree with Zogby, which is nothing new. I don't think that these pollsters are objective or bipartisan; I think their polls are often designed to elicit a given result.
I think there are plenty of others like me, who are completely turned off by the 'mainstream' candidates, such as the aforementioned Giuliani and McCain. Given a choice between whichever Democrat candidate and Giuliani or McCain, or any of the other 'mainstream' GOP choices, I would choose none of the above, voting third party or sitting out the election rather than voting for a 'lesser evil.' If that makes me derelict in my duties as a citizen, so be it; I voted with reluctance last time, and regretted my vote.
And if casting a ballot, reluctantly, for a candidate who does not even approximate my views, is the best our 'democratic republic' can offer me now, I question the health and prognosis of our system. We can't have a true representative republic while marginalizing the majority views as is the case now. Many of us think that we have no one representing our points of view in the halls of power. There are far too many disengaged, disaffected, disillusioned voters who see nothing and no one worth enthusiastically supporting, and this is not an acceptable state of affairs in our republic.
Of course I am sensing that the elites want to discourage people like me, traditional Americans, from voting or participating. Clearly they are pitching their wares to another customer base now; that's what the whole transforming of our country seems to be designed for. Create a new constituency, and buy their loyalty with special treatment and handouts. Voila: a new 'America', and a new and 'improved' docile populace.
Daniel Webster, in his speech at Concord, Massachusetts on July 4, 1808, said the following:
When we speak of preserving the Constitution, we mean not the paper on which it is written, but the spirit which dwells in it. Government may lose all of the real character, its genius, its temper, without losing its appearance.
Republicanism, unless you guard it, will creep out of its case of parchment, like a snake out of its skin. You may have a despotism under the name of a Republic.
You may look on a government, and see it possesses all the external modes of freedom, and yet finding nothing of the essence, the vitality, of freedom in it, just as you may contemplate an embalmed body, where art hath preserved proportion and form, amid nerves without action, and veins void of blood."
Thomas Jefferson said, in a letter to the citizens of Adams County, Pennsylvania, in 1808:
[Bear] always in mind that a nation ceases to be republican only when the will of the majority ceases to be the law."
In that sense, then, it appears that our nation has ceased to be republican. Our system may well be simply an empty shell, like that of Webster's metaphor. We still have the outward forms and procedures but the spirit, the essence has departed. Jefferson repeatedly stressed, in a number of places in his writings, the essential place of the will of the nation, specifically of the majority. Without the principle of the will of the people, a government is no longer republican. A government is legitimate only insofar as it embodies the will of the people, the consent of the governed.
Tom Tancredo and his run for the presidency are symbolic of the spurned majority, the will of the people which is being systematically shut out. The border and immigration issue is the most obvious symptom of this state of affairs. Nowhere is the sad situation made more clear than in the reality that our government is busily importing a new people, one which will be more amenable to its designs, than the current populace of the country.
With no suitable candidates, I think there will be an even greater disaffection among the most traditional citizens of this country, and how this will play out remains to be seen. It does seem as though the parties plan to offer as candidates only those who are on board with the mass immigration, open borders, global agenda; they mean to give us no other choices. Right-liberal or left-liberal, they will all carry out the current plan, which means that the transformation of our country via demographic changes and multiculturalism will proceed apace. Along with those dreary projects, we will be faced with a continuing terror threat, as Islam continues to go from strength to strength in our country, aided and abetted by the come-one-come-all policies of our government, and enabled by Political Correctness, which is slavishly followed by our politicians of both parties. Tom Tancredo is one of a mere handful who has bucked these trends, and for this reason, many of us place high hopes on his candidacy. Even though the odds are against him, at least he is bringing the border issue to the forefront, and is giving expression to a segment of the voting public which is often excluded.
Webster and Thomas Jefferson were prescient to anticipate what is happening in our day, with the spirit of our Constitution, and the substance of our republic, being gutted while we keep the mere outward forms. But the ballot and the trappings of representative government mean little when the choices are limited and the outcome guaranteed to serve the global agenda, no matter who is elected.
Dimitri Vassilaros of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports on Tancredo's candidacy:
If enough voters in the primaries want to stop the illegals' invasion, Rep. Tom Tancredo could be the Republican nominee. And then if enough voters on Election Day want a leader who will defend American sovereignty, well, the Colorado conservative just might win.
"Conservative" as in a lifetime rating of 99 by the American Conservative Union since he became a congressman in 1998. It's the organization's highest rating among announced presidential candidates.
[...]
Frank Newport, editor in chief of The Gallup Poll, notes Tancredo has no national name identification. "But a single issue can be a useful device to get name recognition. If it can propel someone to win the nomination is an open question."
Most Americans will support more border security, but more than 50 percent also want some sort of pathway to citizenship, he says.
"(Tancredo) has very little chance to secure the nomination because you have some big names in the primary," says pollster John Zogby, president and CEO of Zogby International. "It's hard to see a one-issue person succeeding against Rudy Giuliani or John McCain. On the other hand, there is a substantial number of conservatives telling us they're disappointed there are no real conservatives (in the race)."
First of all, I take isse with Newport's poll showing that 'more than 50 percent' of Americans want 'some sort of pathway to citizenship', in other words, amnesty, or 'earned citizenship' or whatever the euphemism du jour is. If the responses indicated that, I have to ask how exactly the questions were phrased; I suspect that the questions were framed in an ambiguous way, so that respondents did not understand that amnesty was the issue.
And secondly I disagree with Zogby, which is nothing new. I don't think that these pollsters are objective or bipartisan; I think their polls are often designed to elicit a given result.
I think there are plenty of others like me, who are completely turned off by the 'mainstream' candidates, such as the aforementioned Giuliani and McCain. Given a choice between whichever Democrat candidate and Giuliani or McCain, or any of the other 'mainstream' GOP choices, I would choose none of the above, voting third party or sitting out the election rather than voting for a 'lesser evil.' If that makes me derelict in my duties as a citizen, so be it; I voted with reluctance last time, and regretted my vote.
And if casting a ballot, reluctantly, for a candidate who does not even approximate my views, is the best our 'democratic republic' can offer me now, I question the health and prognosis of our system. We can't have a true representative republic while marginalizing the majority views as is the case now. Many of us think that we have no one representing our points of view in the halls of power. There are far too many disengaged, disaffected, disillusioned voters who see nothing and no one worth enthusiastically supporting, and this is not an acceptable state of affairs in our republic.
Of course I am sensing that the elites want to discourage people like me, traditional Americans, from voting or participating. Clearly they are pitching their wares to another customer base now; that's what the whole transforming of our country seems to be designed for. Create a new constituency, and buy their loyalty with special treatment and handouts. Voila: a new 'America', and a new and 'improved' docile populace.
Daniel Webster, in his speech at Concord, Massachusetts on July 4, 1808, said the following:
When we speak of preserving the Constitution, we mean not the paper on which it is written, but the spirit which dwells in it. Government may lose all of the real character, its genius, its temper, without losing its appearance.
Republicanism, unless you guard it, will creep out of its case of parchment, like a snake out of its skin. You may have a despotism under the name of a Republic.
You may look on a government, and see it possesses all the external modes of freedom, and yet finding nothing of the essence, the vitality, of freedom in it, just as you may contemplate an embalmed body, where art hath preserved proportion and form, amid nerves without action, and veins void of blood."
Thomas Jefferson said, in a letter to the citizens of Adams County, Pennsylvania, in 1808:
[Bear] always in mind that a nation ceases to be republican only when the will of the majority ceases to be the law."
In that sense, then, it appears that our nation has ceased to be republican. Our system may well be simply an empty shell, like that of Webster's metaphor. We still have the outward forms and procedures but the spirit, the essence has departed. Jefferson repeatedly stressed, in a number of places in his writings, the essential place of the will of the nation, specifically of the majority. Without the principle of the will of the people, a government is no longer republican. A government is legitimate only insofar as it embodies the will of the people, the consent of the governed.
Tom Tancredo and his run for the presidency are symbolic of the spurned majority, the will of the people which is being systematically shut out. The border and immigration issue is the most obvious symptom of this state of affairs. Nowhere is the sad situation made more clear than in the reality that our government is busily importing a new people, one which will be more amenable to its designs, than the current populace of the country.
With no suitable candidates, I think there will be an even greater disaffection among the most traditional citizens of this country, and how this will play out remains to be seen. It does seem as though the parties plan to offer as candidates only those who are on board with the mass immigration, open borders, global agenda; they mean to give us no other choices. Right-liberal or left-liberal, they will all carry out the current plan, which means that the transformation of our country via demographic changes and multiculturalism will proceed apace. Along with those dreary projects, we will be faced with a continuing terror threat, as Islam continues to go from strength to strength in our country, aided and abetted by the come-one-come-all policies of our government, and enabled by Political Correctness, which is slavishly followed by our politicians of both parties. Tom Tancredo is one of a mere handful who has bucked these trends, and for this reason, many of us place high hopes on his candidacy. Even though the odds are against him, at least he is bringing the border issue to the forefront, and is giving expression to a segment of the voting public which is often excluded.
Webster and Thomas Jefferson were prescient to anticipate what is happening in our day, with the spirit of our Constitution, and the substance of our republic, being gutted while we keep the mere outward forms. But the ballot and the trappings of representative government mean little when the choices are limited and the outcome guaranteed to serve the global agenda, no matter who is elected.
Labels: Conservatism, Politics, Presidential Candidates, Tom Tancredo