Tancredo may run for president; Chris Cannon begins smears?

Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) has announced he's forming an exploratory committee for a possible presidential bid. This would be largely a symbolic effort designed to get a wider discussion of immigration issues and perhaps force a front-runner to take a tougher stance on the issue.

Despite the unlikelihood of his success, expect those corrupt forces who profit from or otherwise support illegal immigration to begin a campaign of their own, this one featuring little more than smears. And, it will be aided and abetted by the corrupt media, both of the mainstream and non-mainstream varieties.

Speaking of which, via this comes the American Spectator's "Washington Prowler" with "Tancredo's Dubious Allies". It features the thoughts of an unnamed "staffer for one of Tancredo's colleagues in the House of Representatives". Based on the thoughts and past events, I would say there's about a 95% chance it's Chris Cannon, but one can never know:

"He's going to paint himself as a mainstream conservative," says the staffer for one of Tancredo's colleagues in the House of Representatives. "But the folks he's associating with are not part of the mainstream."

...In fact, it's not clear Tancredo is in line with the mainstream, social conservative wing of the GOP he seeks to align himself with. According to campaign finance reports, one of Tancredo's biggest financial backers has been the family of Dr. John Tanton, the founder of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). Wall Street Journal editorial-page features writer Jason Riley wrote a devastating piece [link] about the organization back in 2004, in which the group's pro-abortion and pro-eugenics roots were revealed...

As an example of that expose, their "pro-eugenics roots" were because they got money from the Pioneer Fund, a group which had supported that ideology in the 30s. In the same decade they gave money to FAIR, they also gave money to: Tel Aviv University, Stanford, New York Hospital - Cornell Medical Center, Randolph-Macon Woman's College, and the Sickle Cell Disease Foundation of Greater New York.

Riley's "expose" was simply a smear, and it was followed-up with similar smears from Chris Cannon. More contemporaneous information on Riley's smears here, here, and here. Note how this smear is similar to the Arizona Dems' attempts to smear Randy Graf.

Please send your thoughts to editor *at* spectator.org

UPDATE: Sleazy Glenn Reynolds ("Instapundit") links to the Spectator piece. Rather than analyzing the smear attempt as above or even just linking to someone who can point out that the Spectator was simply smearing, this is all he says:

THE PROBLEM WITH TOM TANCREDO: He's too liberal? Well, that's a new slant.

Politics · Tue, 01/16/2007 - 10:21 · Importance: 1