April 04, 2007

Captain Ed: "Why Tom Tancredo Is Not A Serious Candidate"

Captain Ed of Captain's Quarters comments on the Hugh Hewitt interview with Tom Tancredo here. Hewitt asked Tancredo about the John Campbell/Jim Gilchrist race in Orange County, taking him to task for supporting the latter:

Hugh Hewitt: ... [L]et me move on. GOP question, just two years and three months ago, Tom, you endorsed an American Independent Party candidate over the Republican nominee in a special election out here in Orange County. Is that material to a campaign for the GOP nomination, that you threw the Republican overboard just two years ago? ...

...HH: You threw the Republican overboard.

Tancredo didn't exactly answer the question and perhaps he should have informed Hewitt that sometimes you have to put country before party. Hewitt would have understood that about as well as a chimp would understand higher mathematics, but we should continue to try.

Captain Ed would probably have issues understanding this as well, saying that "[s]omeone who wants to lead the GOP to the White House needs to answer why he kneecapped the Republican candidate in an election in 2004."

I left a variation of the following comment; it was moderated for one reason or another, so I'm posting this here and sending a trackback:

Hewitt is an extremely partisan hack who barely reaches #72 on Talkers Top 100. He told his listener(s) to call in to John & Ken after the Tancredo interview, and they say they got two (2) calls from his listener(s).

The OC race in question was between Jim Gilchrist and John Campbell. The first ran AIG so he could get into the finals; the second is a Bush-style loose borders R who had previously supported illegal immigration (link).

And, on election day, Gilchrist got almost as many or even more votes than Campbell: Campbell only won because of absentee votes.

On a related note, in AZ the GOP refused to give measurable support to Randy Graf, another candidate who would have cost the backers of the GOP money. In the primary they supported the loose borders candidate who was losing by a wide margin; in the finals they in effect supported the Dem.

Regarding an earlier comment I left on Captain's Quarters which was moderated away despite a subsequent email asking for it to be posted, see the first link in this post.

Posted to Politics at April 4, 2007 12:29 PM