Problems In Colorado, Tennessee, Maine And Michigan Gubernatorial Races

Tuesday, the Denver Post reported that far right extremist, xenophobe and front-runner for the Republican nomination for Colorado governor, Tom Tancredo was dropping out of the race-- after just three months-- because he can't raise any money. As of Dec. 31 he had collected less than $75,000 in campaign contributions. Because of his nasty racism while he was in Congress, he was the best-known Republican in the race, His departure leaves a large field of relieved contestants, including state Treasurer Walker Stapleton, former state lawmaker Victor Mitchell and state Attorney General Cynthia Coffman, who won't have to compete with each other quite as far to the right. He was widely viewed as the "Bannon candidate" in the race and was expecting to be financed by Long Island Nazi family, the Mercers, who have since broken with Bannon and given nothing to Tancredo.

“I think it is a very good development for the Republican Party’s chances in the gubernatorial election” said Ryan Call, a former GOP state chairman.

Not only would Tancredo’s exit would help winnow the field, Call said, but it also would reduce the focus on Tancredo’s past rhetoric, which Call described as “out of the mainstream with the way most Republicans feel.”

For years, Tancredo has been a controversial national voice on issues of immigration and he entered the race last fall in part because he was upset that fellow Republicans didn’t do more to protest the decision by a Colorado Springs resort to cancel a conference for the white nationalist VDARE Foundation.

But Tancredo isn't the only Republican gubernatorial candidate who has run into trouble this week. In Tennessee another far right fanatic, former state Senator Mae Beavers, who was considered a top tier candidate, also dropped out of the race on Tuesday, also citing an inability to raise money. She had resigned her Senate seat to run full-time. The top contenders are Congresswoman Diane Black, state House Speaker Beth Harwell, and two wealthy businessmen, Randy Boyd and Bill Lee. All of them are from the far right end of the party but Beavers was the real Nazi in the race. Several of the others had raised nearly 10 times what she had raised.

In Maine, there was a whole other kind of Republican screw-up, courtesy of out-going GOP extremist Governor Paul LePage. One of the right-wing nuts running, businessman Shawn Moody, hired LePage's daughter (plus LePage advisor Brent Littlefield) but when LePage was asked if he'd endorse Moody, he said he isn't endorsing any of the 5 GOP candidates but that he is really opposing the Republican state Senate President Mike Thibodeau. He's been actively feuding with Thibodeau since 2015 and has campaigned against his reelection to the state Senate. After LePage called a Democratic legislator a "socialist cocksucker," Thibodeau said he was open to the legislature censuring LePage.

In the Michigan gubernatorial race there's a different kind of problem. A leading candidate in the race, progressive Abdul El-Sayed, may be disqualified. It's important to remember that the Shelby Township resident was born and raised in Michigan. BUT, he registered to vote in New York while attending graduate school and working as a professor between 2012 and 2015 and the state constitution requires any candidate for governor to be a registered elector in the state at least four years prior to the election, right in the middler of his time in New York.

His campaign says El-Sayed maintained “continuous residence” in Michigan by keeping an apartment here even when he worked out of state, and Secretary of State records show El-Sayed has been “continuously registered to vote in Michigan since 2003,” said spokesman Fred Woodhams.

But El-Sayed’s Michigan registration was on a “cancellation countdown status” between 2013 and 2016 because he had surrendered his driver’s license to get one in New York, Woodhams said. El-Sayed, a doctor, earned a medical degree at Columbia University and worked there as an assistant professor.

If El-Sayed had tried to vote in Michigan during that period-- which he did not-- he would have had to verify his address and affirm he was eligible to vote here, Woodhams said. His registration would have been been canceled after the November 2016 election had he not updated his registration and voted in Michigan.

“Under federal law, the department may not cancel a voter’s registration due to the person moving away until two federal election cycles have passed,” Woodhams said.

Campaign spokesman Adam Joseph quickly dismissed questions over El-Sayed’s eligibility, as first reported by Bridge.

“Abdul is 100% eligible to be governor of Michigan,” Joseph said in a statement. “He has been continuously registered to vote in Michigan since he was 18 years old, and he has maintained continuous residence in Michigan since his childhood. He is a son of Michigan-- born and raised in this state, went to public schools in this state, and had a daughter in this state.”

El-Sayed is running an aggressive campaign as he prepares to compete in the Democratic primary against former state Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer, Ann Arbor businessman Shri Thanedar and former Xerox executive Bill Cobbs.

He will have to file an affidavit of identity by April 24 to qualify for the primary ballot. The affidavit will require him to say how long he has been a resident of Michigan and attest that he is registered and qualified to vote here. It will not require him to attest that he meets constitutional qualifications to be governor, according to a blank form reviewed by the Detroit News.

His eligibly may only become an issue if an opponent files a formal complaint with the state, but that is unlikely to happen anytime soon, said Democratic strategist and pollster Ed Sarpolous.

Whitmer, who is leading early polls of the Democratic race, has little incentive to challenge El-Sayed’s eligibility because it would alienate his supporters that she may need in the general election, Sarpolous said. Republicans have no incentive to challenge his eligibility unless he wins the Democratic primary he said.

“The bottom line is a court’s going to end up ruling on this,” Sarpolous predicted.

El-Sayed returned to Michigan full-time after Mayor Mike Duggan tapped him to serve as Detroit health department director in August 2015.

A self-described progressive who has been courting voters who backed presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, El-Sayed did not vote in Michigan’s March 8, 2016, Democratic primary that saw Sanders narrowly top eventual party nominee Hillary Clinton.

In an April interview, the Detroit News asked El-Sayed for whom he voted. He responded by saying he “was a Bernie guy,” but his campaign later clarified that “crowding at the polling place prevented him from voting for Bernie, but he was an avid supporter.”

El-Sayed told a similar story that month on WKAR-TV’s “Off The Record,” saying he tried to vote “several times” that day but was met by long lines he could not wait in on a work day.

But state voter registration records show El-Sayed was not registered to vote in Detroit at the time of the March 8 primary.

He had been registered to vote in Ann Arbor since 2008 but changed his registration to Detroit on March 29, 2016, according to the state. He reapplied for a Michigan driver’s license at that time and voted in the November general election.

Ted Cruz Has Plans For A Republican-Controlled Congress

Do fascists now control the Senate GOP? Curtis Haas and Ted Cruz

Former Colorado congressman and virulent racist Tom Tancredo wrote on some fringy, far right website that if the GOP captures the Senate today the GOP leadership should move immediately to impeach President Obama. So? Who cares what a crackpot like Tancredo, a private citizen with absolutely no mainstream credibility, has to say? How about if someone just as unhinged was saying the same kind of stuff but from inside the U.S. Senate? Did you watch House of Cards? If so, do you recall the "Tea Party bullhorn," a far right, obstructionist and neo-fascist senator named Curtis Haas? He was modeled on... real-lfe far right, obstructionist and neo-fascist senator Ted Cruz... from Texas.

So with many of today's crucial Senate races polling within the margin of error-- Quinnipiac has Braley and Ernst in a 47-47% dead heat in Iowa, for example-- that even the biggest optimists in the country are coming to grips with the fact that the Republicans could take over the U.S. Senate, which will give them-- thanks to Steve Israel's grotesque incompetence and corruption-- control over both Houses of Congress.

Although the Republican senators and candidates have by and large campaigned as "bipartisan" and mainstream, the party will be in thrall to the demented ideological extremism of Ted Cruz, in the same way that the House of Cards Republicans were effectively controlled by Curtis Haas. Sunday evening Sebastian Payne and Robert Costa, interviewed Cruz for the Washington Post. They reported that "Cruz made it clear he would push hard for a Republican-led Senate to be as conservative and confron­tational as the Republican-led House."

Piggybacking on what House leaders have done, Cruz said the first order of business should be a series of hearings on President Obama, “looking at the abuse of power, the executive abuse, the regulatory abuse, the lawlessness that sadly has pervaded this administration.”

Cruz also would like the Senate to be as aggressive in trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act as the House, which has voted more than 50 times to get rid of the law.

Republicans should “pursue every means possible to repeal Obamacare,” Cruz said, including forcing a vote through parliamentary procedures that would get around a possible filibuster by Democrats. If that leads to a veto by Obama, Cruz said, Republicans should then vote on provisions of the health law “one at a time.”

And when asked whether he would back Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky for Republican leader, Cruz would not pledge his support-- an indication that there are limits to how much of a partner he’s willing to be.

At the heart of Cruz’s shift from the insular approach that defined his first year in office is a belief that he can use his popularity with conservatives to expand his influence in the Senate and improve his standing as he considers a 2016 presidential campaign.

Cruz’s desire to turn his party further right in the coming months is one of the challenges already facing McConnell should Republicans regain the Senate, with tea party leaders inside and outside the Capitol spoiling for a number of hard-line moves.

“Senator Cruz has been rather quiet over the past few months,” said Ron Bonjean, a spokesman for Trent Lott when the Mississippian was the Senate Republican leader. “That time seems to be coming to an end. I understand why he’s eager to go after Obamacare. But the reality is that it’ll take 60 votes to repeal it and Republicans will have nowhere near that amount. If Obamacare remains the focus, he will certainly get the base jazzed up about what he’s doing, but he won’t get rid of the law.”

Cruz has gained some traction in terms of shaping the contours of what a Republican Senate would do, in part because McConnell and House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) have not offered their own definitive vision of what a Republican-led Congress would look like.

Two weeks ago, Cruz wrote an opinion piece in USA Today laying out 10 conservative priorities he thinks Republicans should pursue, including moving toward a flat tax and drawing a hard line on illegal immigrants. In the interview here, Cruz reiterated some of those points, such as approving the Keystone XL pipeline.

...Cruz should be able to count on a handful of new friends, if not allies, when the Senate convenes next year. In recent weeks, he has campaigned for Senate contenders who beat Cruz-admiring insurgents in Republican primaries, from businessman David Perdue in Georgia and state Sen. Joni Ernst in Iowa to Sullivan and Sen. Pat Roberts, Kansas’s embattled incumbent.

If she wins, Ernst is poised to be a powerful player in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses, the first nominating contest in the 2016 race for the GOP presidential nomination. Perdue, who has weak ties to his red state’s GOP base, could hew close to Cruz on some votes to keep conservatives in Georgia at bay. Sullivan, for similar reasons, could do the same.

Right wing sociopaths are going to back Cruz and vote for his candidates. Can he be stopped by "normal" voters today-- ones who aren't brainwashed by Fox and Hate Talk Radio? Yes, if independent voters in Iowa, Colorado, Maine, South Dakota and Alaska, break strong for Bruce Braley, Mark Udall, Shenna Bellows, Rick Weiland and Mark Begich, Cruz will be back in his sandbox howling at the moon for the next two years.

Didn't Ronald Reagan used to say, "Mr. Gorbachev, put up those walls"?

Invisible Hand vs. Regulator
Can Invisible-Hand-of-the-Free-Market Man ever be stopped -- or lose popularity?
BY TOM TOMORROW

[Don't forget to click on the cartoon to enlarge it.]

by Ken

Just this morning Howie was writing once again about the craziness of this election season, and quoted this nugget from Digby, who's been chronicling the craziness perhaps more closely than any still-sane person might sensibly dare:

This is an ugly election-- one of the worst I've ever seen-- financed by billionaires who are very happy to let the GOP run completely wild as long as it takes care of the owners. But it isn't ugly because the Democrats have been hurling mud. It's ugly because this ugly political movement is fighting as dirty as candidates can fight.

The craziness is so extreme and so widespread and so widely accepted as, apparently, the New Normal that outside of the people we all read and watch, it's going virtually unremarked on. Oh yes, the infotainment newsterriers may occasionally yip good-naturedly over some little gaffe, but to step back and note the blanket ignorance, incompetence, and sheer craziness of this lot of wackos? Not so much.

So we have to turn to the alternative media -- to, for example, AlterNet's Adele Stan writing about the astonishing surge in the Colorado governor's race of the godfather of Major-Party Wackadoodlery, former Rep. Tom Tancredo (links onsite):

If the latest Rasmussen survey of likely voters is to be believed, in the Colorado governor’s race, anti-immigrant gadfly Tom Tancredo is polling within four points of the frontrunner, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, a Democrat. The Rasmussen poll shows Hickenlooper at 42 percent, Tancredo at 38 percent and Republican Dan Maes at just 12 percent.

When Tancredo jumped into the Colorado gubernatorial race, most political analysts simply rolled their eyes. After all, this was the guy who, at the Tea Party Nation convention in Memphis earlier this year, advocated a return to literacy tests for voter registration, a practice that was used and abused for decades in the South to keep African-Americans from the voting booth. And this was the guy who called Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor “a racist” who should be “disqualified” from serving on the bench, and a member of “a Latino KKK.” The most Tancredo could hope for, the thinking went, was to be a spoiler by splitting the right-wing vote between himself and Maes, the Tea Party-backed candidate who won the G.O.P. nomination in an upset.

If you think his rhetoric is scary, consider this: To make his third-party bid, Tancredo signed on with the American Constitution Party, which despite its secular-sounding name, is a party based upon the principles of Christian Reconstructionism, whose adherents seek to have biblical law — including the execution of LGBT people and the stoning of adulterers — instituted as the law of the land. (Both Rand Paul and Sharron Angle have links to the Constitution Party, as we reported here.) . . .

Also on AlterNet, there's a post by Brad100 called "Christian Conservative Leaders Ignore Their Values in 2010 Election," pointing out that those reliably right-wing "religious leaders" such as Tony Perkins, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and Focus on Family, Moral Majority, and Family Research Council, who could always be counted on to go all fire-and-brimstone on any pol in whom they detected (or if necesssary imagined) any moral shortcoming, have lost their voice in the face of people like lech and perv Carl Paladino, the R candidate for governor of New York; WWF depravity entrepreneur Linda McMahon, the R candidate for U.S. senator from Connecticut; and the apparently former witch Christine O'Donnell, the R candidate for U.S. senator from Delaware.

Then there's Crazy Joe Miller, the official R candidate for U.S. senator from Alaska. Howie was writing just this morning about Joe:

Sunday night, during a town hall in Anchorage, crooked Tea Party thug Joe Miller -- who has already announced he will not be answering any questions about his shady background -- had members of his private militia attack and kidnap Tony Hopfinger, a journalist who asked him some embarrassing questions. Do you think any conservatives have come out and chastised Miller? Let me know if you find any. After all, Miller's professed love of the Constitution is just a talking point, nothing something he or his followers take seriously.

Unfortunately, we haven't heard the last of Crazy Joe. Today on Greg Sargent's Plum Line blog featured a post by The American Prospect staff reporter Adam Serwer, which began:

Joe Miller, tear down this wall

Yesterday, my colleague Tim Fernholz had this to say about the news that bodyguards of Alaska Senate Candidate Joe Miller had handcuffed a journalist:

What is it about the fear of big-government fascism that makes Tea Party candidates act like big-government fascists?

For Miller, this irony doesn't end with his private security handcuffing reporters he sees as hostile. As a way to stop illegal immigration, he suggested emulating Communist East Germany by simply building a wall:

"The first thing that has to be done is secure the border. ... East Germany was very, very able to reduce the flow. Now, obviously, other things were involved. We have the capacity to, as a great nation, secure the border. If East Germany could do it, we could do it."

This seems to be one of those moments where it's worth reflecting on what the reaction at Fox News would be if a liberal, sarcastically or otherwise, suggested replicating the "triumphs" of East German communism, or had his private security detain a journalist they thought was being hostile.

None of which is to suggest that in other years we are vouchsafe nothing but, or even large quantities of, candidates radiating wisdom and mental health. But really, are there limiits? Well no, apparently not.

My impulse is to leave it at that, but I think I had better finish the thought of Digby's which I quoted above.

Where I began quoting, she had just written:

When this new progressive movement started, one of its tenets was that if progressive candidates would take risks, would be aggressive against the Republicans, would shake up the establishment and stop being the milquetoast campaigners that had turned the Democratic party into an embarrassment -- we would get their backs. Some of them believed us and they went outside the normal cautious "don't make trouble" approach and came out swinging. It's risky, and sometimes it misses. But taking risks is what we asked them to do and that's what we signed up for.

Here, then, is the full paragraph that follows:

We have two weeks to go and some of these races are very, very tight. They may all lose, some might win, we just don't know. This is an ugly election --- one of the worst I've ever seen --- financed by billionaires who are very happy to let the GOP run completely wild as long as it takes care of the owners. But it isn't ugly because the Democrats have been hurling mud. It's ugly because this ugly political movement is fighting as dirty as candidates can fight. Some Democrats aren't rolling over and playing dead. The least we can do is have their backs as we promised we would.

Digby went on to provide a link for donating to the campaign of Kentucky Democratic Senate candidate Jack Conway, the target of the savage campaign being waged on behalf of quasi-libertarian Rand Paul, whose libertarianism disappears whenever it becomes inconvenient to his financial backers and Teabagger fans.

The link is for the Blue America "Senate Candidates Worth Fighting For," including Scott McAdams, the Alaska Democrat running against Crazy Joe Miller (and, as a write-in candidate, incumbent GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski, current representative of the state's famous family of political kleptomaniacs) -- and also including Roxanne Conlin (IA), Paul Hodes (NH), Elaine Marshall (NC), and Joe Sestak (PA). Imagine what a different place the Senate might be if they all won.

#

Will Teabagger Mayhem And Palin Interference Hand Democrats A Kentucky Senate Seat?

Unless you go out and speak with hordes of teabaggers at their own events, you might want to romanticize their movement into something more than pure racism and Know Nothing bigotry. You'd be making a mistake-- and that has largely been borne out this weekend in Nashville, starting with Tom Tancredo's xenophobic opening address (see above). The "Tea Party Movement" is mostly an unfocused ad hoc coalition of the paranoid, the racist, the angry, the extremely stoopid and brainwashed... people angry Obama won the presidency. On the teabagger-oriented video below, you'll hear Texas arch-reactionary Ron Paul carefully trying to distance himself from the excesses that really do define teabaggery, while hoping to exploit those same passions for his own "movement" (or career trajectory). He seems to be laboring under the delusion that the teabaggers are actually protesting deficits, flawed foreign policy, inflation and the monetary system rather than "anchor babies," "illegals," and poor Blacks achieving some kind of societal equality with poor whites.

In the end, Paul pretty much admits the teabaggers are a hodgepodge of fringe kooks with few unifying principles other than diffused anger at Washington. He says he prefers to talk with conservative college students. I bet he does! That's why Sarah Palin is getting the big $120,000 check from the teabagger organizers tonight and he isn't. She's not as cerebral and idealistic as Paul and her training on the national stage has taught her not to come off as blatantly racist and bigoted as Tancredo. Remember, until you scratch a bit below the surface, many teabaggers want to come off as quasi-respectable, just the way Germany's bourgeoisie did in the early 1930s when they were voting for Hitler's right-wing party. Today's Guardian points out perceptively that the "amid such a ragbag of phobias, paranoia and principles, one unifying force was support for the former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who will speak to the convention at its close tonight."

Ironically, Kentucky's mini-GOP civil war pits Paul's son, Rand-- with the high profile backing of Palin-- against Trey Grayson, the handpicked candidate of the boss of Kentucky's Republican Party Machine, Mitch "Miss" McConnell. Palin's candidate in NY-23, some kook named Hoffman, lost a solidly red seat for the GOP. In Massachusetts Scott Brown wisely kept her at arm's length-- as did the successful Republican gubernatorial candidates in Virginia and New Jersey late last year. Rand Paul, on the other hand, is running on her skirttails. Kentucky is... well, Kentucky.

She has thrown her support behind Rand Paul, a favorite of anti-establishment conservatives such as RedState.com and Gun Owners of America, who is running for Senate in Kentucky.
 
Palin waded into the race despite it being widely known among political insiders that McConnell backs Rand’s opponent, Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson.
 
GOP strategists in Washington believe Grayson has a much better chance of winning the general election but Palin has channeled conservatives' frustration over “go-along-to-get-along” Republicans in Washington.
 
Palin’s not-so-subtle challenge to McConnell’s political authority shows the overall difficulty GOP leaders have in taming the resurgent conservative base, which has made Palin and the Tea Party newly powerful political forces.
 
McConnell has not endorsed Grayson formally but he has worked for the candidate behind the scenes. He contributed $10,000 to Grayson through a leadership PAC and hosted a fundraiser for the candidate in New York.
 
Paul, a career doctor, has made clear [not really-- he flips back and forth constantly] that he is running against the GOP establishment. He said in a CNN interview Friday that he could win the May 18 primary without the help of party leaders in Washington. Earlier, he declined to promise that he would vote for McConnell to remain Senate leader if elected.
 
Palin, who will deliver the keynote address at the inaugural Tea Party Convention this weekend, said her support for Paul is designed to shake up Washington. 
 
“While there are issues we disagree on, he and I are both in agreement that it’s time to shake up the status quo in Washington and stand for common-sense ideas,” Palin said in her statement of support.
 
“It shows that Sarah Palin is independent and not deferential to party leaders in DC,” said Brian Darling of the Heritage Foundation. “You have a split, you really have a Republican Party that is divided and it shows in the Kentucky race where you have the Senate leaders supporting one of the candidates and Sarah Palin another.”
 
“It’s going to be a high profile battle between two leaders of the Republican Party,” he said.

...McConnell has to be careful not to take on Paul directly because it could antagonize the portion of the party base that views him coolly, even skeptically.
 
“A big chunk of the Republican Party doesn’t care too much for Mitch MConnell, they think he’s too much the insider and too much the earmark man,” said Al Cross, a political pundit and director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky.

The emergence of the Tea Party and the hostility of its members toward the GOP establishment gives party leaders cause for concern because it reflects growing estrangement with the party base... It’s questionable whether Tea Party conservatives could develop enough strength and unity to upset the leadership hierarchy in Washington, but they certainly threaten to play havoc in primaries.
 
One DC insider said that Palin may regret her support for Paul because the candidate has taken stands that could prove controversial among Republican primary voters, such as opposing the war in Iraq. Paul has drawn criticism for saying that detainees from the Guantanamo Bay detention camp should be returned to their home countries. He has since recalibrated his position to say that Guantanamo should stay open for the short term and that suspected terrorists should stand trial before military tribunals and kept off U.S. soil.
 
“I don’t think Governor Palin knows very much about Rand Paul,” said a senior Republican aide who supports Grayson. “I can’t believe she thinks it would help her to support someone with the views he has.”
 
Kentucky political experts say boosting Paul may ultimately cost Republicans the seat in November.
 
“McConnell truly sees the prospect that the tea baggers could veer his party further to the right, far enough to the right to turn off moderates trending his way,” said Cross, using a derisive term for Tea Party activists.
 
“The Democrats best chance of winning the seat is for Rand Paul to be the nominee,” he said.

UPDATE: Palin's $120,000 Speech To Her Drooling Fanclub

Palin reading the joke Matthew Skelly wrote for her about Obama using a TelePromTer for set speeches from cards, and making a mockery out of the fake "Q&A" session by having the answers written on her palm, was only part of what made her performance so very sad last night. I was immediately reminded of the ending of Charles Pierce's book, Idiot America, which is, after all, in essence, a book about how someone with as little to offer as Sarah Palin could capture the imagination of 600 angry misfits and be broadcast on three national television networks. Writing about the Father of the Constitution, James Madison, he talks about ideas that would never occur to the self proclaimed "constitutionalists" gathered in Nashville, more widely known as teabaggers:

But we were supposed to keep things where they belonged, so their essential value would be enhanced and not diluted. Religion would remain transcendent, and not alloyed cheaply with politics. The entrepreneurial spirit used to sell goods would be different in kind from the one used to sell ideas. Our cranks, flourishing out there in the dying light, would somehow bring us around to a truth even they couldn't see.

We need our cranks more than ever, but we need them in their proper places. We've chained our imagination because we've decided it should function as truth. We've shackled it with the language of political power and the vocabulary of salesmanship.

Laugh all you want though; it's us who created this political Frankenstein that makes a mockery of the uniqueness and greatness of the United States.

Teabaggers Get Down In Nashville

After Markos Moulitsas chased racist chickenhawk Tom Tancredo off MSNBC awhile back, I imagined Tom T would be too embarrassed to ever show his face in public-- not counting Fox, of course-- again. When I woke up at 5 this morning and fumbled for the remote and switched from HGTV to CNN, what did I see on my screen but... Tom Tancredo? Yecchhh.

It was a story on the teabaggers, and he was all they could find as an opening speaker for their convention in Nashville last night.



His goal was pure Republican Party strategy: illegitimize Barack Obama and undermine him in the eyes of an already frenzied batch of 600 paranoid self-defined victims, almost all of whom are already totally brainwashed by Limbaugh and Beck.

The former congressman from Colorado and 2008 Republican presidential candidate blasted President Obama, saying "people who could not even spell the word 'vote,' or say it in English, put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House. His name is Barack Hussein Obama."

...Tancredo's speech received polite applause among the 600 attendees at the convention.
"So the race for America is on right now. The president and his left-wing allies in Congress are going to look at every opportunity to destroy the Constitution before we have a chance to save it. So put your running shoes on. Because I'll tell you, I've heard we need a revolution. My friends, we already had it. We lost. I mean, what happened to us in that last election was a revolution," said Tancredo, discussing the 2008 presidential contest.

Tancredo also slammed that election's Republican presidential nominee, saying "thank God John McCain lost the election."

But teabaggery is more than a way for racists, bigots, haters, malcontent rightists and paranoids to vent and sound like they're part of the mainstream, or at least the Glenn Beck mainstream. It's also the secular way to shear the right-wing sheep. Why should all that money from those suckers be siphoned off by religionist charlatans all the time? The secular hucksters on the far right fringes want in too. This morning's Washington Post pointed out that the rip-off aspects brought unwanted controversy and that some "high-profile speakers and activist groups have canceled their appearances in protest of alleged profiteering by the convention organizers... Attendees have paid $549 a ticket (plus hotel and transportation) to gather for three days at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center, which critics say is out of reach for many activists. Some of the proceeds will cover former Alaska governor Sarah Palin's reported $100,000 fee for Saturday's keynote address."

Alan Keyes' Cruise For Liberty insanity and the spin-off Restoring Liberty conference last month were perfect examples: screaming "impeachment" for bucks. The Post article mentioned that "outside the convention hall, entrepreneurs sold souvenirs: sterling silver tea bag necklaces ($89.99), bags of 'Freedom Coffee' ($9) and T-shirts emblazoned with a bald eagle ($20) [and] House Republican Leader John A. Boehner (Ohio) said Thursday that there is 'no difference' in the beliefs of Republicans and tea party activists." The GOP plans to retake Congress with that and a platform of phasing out Social Security and Medicare. The Obama Democrats have been pretty bad this last year, but in case anyone had forgotten, the GOP makes them look almost good.

McCAIN CELEBRATES CINCO DE MAYO... UNCOMFORTABLY

Hola! Please vote for me, por favor

I don't know if Rahm Emanuel is taking Tom Tancredo (R-CO) and his boy Heath Shuler (D-NC) out for margaritas at Tortilla Coast after work today to celebrate the $23 billion anti-immigration bill they wrote. But if he does, we can be pretty certain they won't run into arch-bigot Rush Limbaugh, who just compared L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to a “shoe shine guy” or a “Secret Service agent." (Do Secret Service agents and shoe shine guys all look the same to Republican fat cats?)

Antonio is an old friend of mine. In 2000 when the ACLU honored me with their annual Bill of Rights Award, I asked Antonio to introduce me to the audience before my speech. He wasn't the mayor (or in any office) at the time. I asked him because he is brilliant and focused and committed to the same progressive ideals and values that motivate me. I knew his speech would inspire me-- and it did. If I had to guess between someone with Limbaugh's mind and someone with Antonio's mind which would wind up with a menial job, I'd bet on Limbaugh. As far as a Secret Service agent... frankly I don't know what Limbaugh was going on about there. The ones I've met have been what I'd call model citizens-- my old friend Brian, and two agents who helped me-- one when tenants of mine were paying their rent with counterfeit hundred dollars bills and one when a police horse stepped on me in front of Dubrow's on Kings Highway when I was a child and my mom took me to meet JFK.

Meanwhile, desperately trying to escape from the vicious racism and elitism of his country club party, McCain launched a campaign website in Spanish and put out a new ad en espanol today, Cinco de Mayo. And instead of spending the day with Frenchmen, McCain has announced he will be addressing the annual convention of the National Council of La Raza in San Diego on July 14 (Bastille Day). McCain: "On this day in 1862, a small group of Mexican troops overcame overwhelming force to win the Battle of Puebla. Today, we join together to remember the sacrifice that these Mexican patriots endured, as well as the struggles of all those around the world striving for freedom. We recognize as well the important friendship that exists between our country and Mexico, and celebrate the many contributions Mexican-Americans have made to our society, culture, security and economy.”

Obama had a message too: "[W]hile Mexico’s cultural traditions are an important part of who we are as Americans, the American dream is still out of reach for too many Latinos... [O]ur broken immigration system works for neither the immigrant families who are being torn apart nor the workers who are concerned about unfair competition, which is why we need to pass comprehensive immigration reform once and for all. So while I hope that all Americans are enjoying this Cinco de Mayo, I also hope that when the celebrations come to an end, we’ll take up the cause of coming together as Americans to solve our common challenges and put the American dream within reach for every family in this country."

McCain no longer backs his own immigration reform bill. Buckling under to xenophobes and extremists in his own party, he has backed away from the legislation he wrote in 2006, legislation meant "to reform immigration laws and allow illegals to apply for legal residency retroactive to their arrival. Conservatives around the nation criticized McCain for the bill, which they said was too lenient against lawbreakers. McCain has said since then that he learned the lesson that focusing on border security is primary." Today he petulantly groused that "the focus on illegal immigration during the Republican primary season has harmed his party’s image among Hispanics."

But then John W. McCain defines political opportunism and has always been a serial flip-flopper. I wonder if he and Cindy will deny Arianna Huffington's post today about how neither of them voted for Bush in 2000: "At a dinner party in Los Angeles not long after the 2000 election, I was talking to a man and his wife, both prominent Republicans. The conversation soon turned to the new president. 'I didn't vote for George Bush' the man confessed. 'I didn't either,' his wife added. Their names: John and Cindy McCain."

The fact that this man was so angry at what George Bush had done to him, and at what Bush represented for their party, that he did not even vote for him in 2000 shows just how far he has fallen since then in his hunger for the presidency. By abandoning his core principles and embracing Bush-- both literally and metaphorically-- he has morphed into an older and crankier version of the man he couldn't stomach voting for in 2000.

UPDATE: McCAIN CAUGHT LYING HIS ASS OFF AGAIN

I was horrified to read in the Washington Post this morning that John McCain, a despicable political hack who has had a long record of twisting the truth to squeeze it into his career trajectory, has called Arianna Huffington-- through an official spokesperson-- a liar. I know Arianna and there is one thing that is certain-- whether you agree with her opinions or not-- she is a highly honorable person and would never, under any circumstances, make a story like this up. McCain makes me want to vomit. There is only one question left that any media person should ask him from now until November-- will he agree to take a lie detector test about whether or not he told Arianna that he didn't vote for Bush.

McCain, in their smear of Arianna, called on voters to "consider the source." Arianna asks them to consider both sources.

My sentiments exactly -- because John McCain has a long history of issuing heartfelt denials of things that were actually true.

He denied ever talking with John Kerry about his leaving the GOP to be Kerry's '04 running mate -- then later admitted he had, insisting: "Everybody knows that I had a conversation."

He denied admitting that he didn't know much about economics, even though he'd said exactly that to the Wall Street Journal. And the Boston Globe. And the Baltimore Sun.

He denied ever having asked for a budget earmark for Arizona, even though he had. On the record.

He denied that he'd ever had a meeting with comely lobbyist Vicki Iseman and her client Lowell Paxon, even though he had. And had admitted it in a legal deposition.

And those are just the outright denials. He's also repeatedly tried to spin away statements he regretted making (see: 100-year war, Iraq was a war for oil, etc.).

So, yes, by all means, "consider the source."

NATIONAL REPUBLICAN PARTY ON A SUICIDE MISSION-- HOPEFULLY THEY WON'T TAKE THE REST OF US WITH THEM

The Republican melee that will determine which one of the pathetic pygmies gets to ask Americans if they want a third term for George Bush has degenerated into a battle about religionism, a clear example of why the Republicans Party is destined to become a small, extremist regional political party for crackpots and loons. As ABC News reports today, "Religion is driving the Republican presidential race in Iowa, with Mike Huckabee taking the lead on the strength of overwhelming support from evangelical voters-- and Mitt Romney falling behind over concerns about his Mormon faith."

Mitt Romney is certainly unfit for high office-- no arguments there-- but the pathetic beings who dominate the Republican caucuses in Iowa certainly are rejecting him for the wrong reasons. None of the Above, which has dominated the race from Day One and becomes stronger and stronger the better the voters get to know their candidates, can't win. It isn't allowed. It is more likely that Republican voters will opt for the tired old man they know best, John McCain. Huckabee's insane religionist psychosis will play well among Republicans in the South and in other backward areas, but even Republicans in most places feel uncomfortable with wild statements like "The war on terror is a theological war," standard fare in the Huckabee campaign.

No one's polling numbers will be impacted by racist xenophobe Tom Tancredo's decision to withdraw from the race today after finding out that the one straw he was grasping at-- an endorsement from psychotic Iowa Congressman Steve King (one of the only members of Congress as racist and bigoted as himself)-- will not be forthcoming. The King endorsement was his entire Iowa game-plan-- outside of the Know Nothing fear mongering. King endorsed another loser, who will also be withdrawing soon, the lazy old man with the devastatingly ambitious young wife, Fred Thompson. As for Ron Paul, the candidate of UFO enthusiasts, the KKK, neo-fascists and conspiracy nuts, he's made a big decision-- he's keeping the $500 donation from neo-Nazi Stormfront founder Don Black whose motto is "White Pride World Wide." Catchy. Even some of the most extreme of the far right kooks and loons think Ron Paul is off his rocker and feel uncomfortable that the Republican Party is being publicly identified with Nazis.

If anti-immigration hysteria is such a powerful electoral force, Simon Rosenberg asks, why is Tom Tancredo a nonfactor in the presidential race?

You'll recall that one of Howie's many beefs with Democratic electoral puppetmaster Rahm Emanuel is his advice--actually more like a fiat--to 2008 congressional candidates that they must make a monster big deal of the immigration issue, beating the drum for the wacko reactionary ("f--k the illegal scum") position.

Apart from the appalling intolerance, bordering on outright racism, of this position, the Master's strategy flouts all available evidence that this just isn't an overriding issue for most voters, and while the GOP is having a grand old time self-destructing over it, elections are simply not going to be won with this crudely demagogic binge of xenophobia. Apparently, though, Master Rahm has never met a crudely demagogic binge he couldn't get behind.

Now Simon Rosenberg (pictured above) of NDN--noteworthy among progressive advocacy organizations for its considerable attention to immigration issues and outreach to the Hispanic-American community--is asking a provocative question:

Why is Tancredo at 1 percent?

In the new USA/Gallup Poll out today, the new order for the GOP nationally is Giuliani, Huckabee, McCain. These three candidates are the most liberal of the GOP primary candidates on immigration. All have come out in their careers for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, which allows the 11-12 million undocumented to stay in the country. The only two candidates who gained ground in this poll are the ones who have been fighting for a more reasonable immigration approach in the most recent debates, Huckabee and McCain. And in the poll Tancredo [pictured here] stays where he has been for months - at 1 percent.

I am not arguing here that immigration is an easy issue. But I think the overwhelming evidence in the last several elections and in all the polling data indicate that those who believe it has the capacity to be the defining issue in American politics are simply overstating their case. If immigration isn't driving the GOP Presidential primary - which it clearly isn't - I don't know how it is going to drive the Presidential race or Congressional elections next year.

It is my belief that the massive investment the GOP has made in the immigration issue is actually a sign of weakness, a sign of how much the rest of their agenda has collapsed. They have little they can say on their time in power, on what they've done to help the struggling middle class, on the success of their foreign policy, how they've brought health inusrance to more people. So what they have settled on is immigration, a 2nd tier but important issue, one where their position may work to fire up some of their base but simply does not work with the broader electorate looking for smart and sensible solutions and has managed to alienate the fastest growing part of the American electorate, Hispanics.

For more on the how the issue of immigration has not performed for the GOP check out my recent essay Immigration, once again, despite huge GOP investment, does not perform for the GOP.

HEATH SHULER JOINS TOM TANCREDO KNOW NOTHING COALITION

Recently I interviewed Joan Fitz-Gerald, the preferred candidate of the Democratic Establishment for the Colorado congressional seat being vacated by Mark Udall, who is running for the U.S. Senate. Joan had been president of the state Senate and has taken some flack for some tough immigration legilslation. Her opponent, Jared Polis, is hitting her hard for not standing up for Colorado's immigrant community strongly enough. When I asked her how she felt about the harsh enforcement-only/xenophobic Heath Shuler immigration bill, co-sponsored by so many Democrats in Rahm Emanuel's orbit, her reply was "I wouldn't. If Tom Tancredo's name is on it, I'm not co-sponsoring it. I know Tom Tancredo and I know where he is on immigration."

Thanks primarily to to Fox News and Lou Dobbs, CNN's self-righteous resident xenophobe, so does much of America. But not all Democrats are as wary of Tancredo's siren song of Know Nothing racism and xenophobia as is Joan Fitz-Gerald. Decent Americans shuddered this week when Tancredo admitted at the CNN/YouTube debate that it isn't only "illegal aliens" he is after but all immigrants. One of the top Democrats in the House, string-puller Rahm Emanuel has teamed up with Tancredo to demonize immigrants. And Emanuel's most pathetic puppet in the House, reactionary freshman Heath Shuler, is the chief sponsor of the harshest anti-immigration bill since the viciously anti-Irish Catholic hysteria of the mid-1850s. (In California the anti-Catholic hysteria morphed into hatred of Chilean and Chinese immigrants as well and teh Know Nothings actually elected a mayor of San Francisco and a state governor, J. Neely Johnson!) They also elected a mayor of Chicago, Levi Boone, who barred immigrants from all city jobs. Abe Lincoln took them on and kept them from gaining statewide power in Illinois. More recently both the mainstream New York Times and the extreme right Weekly Standard have warned, in the words of neocon William Kristol, that the detested "populist Republicans" didn't recognize the danger of "turning the GOP into an anti-immigration, Know-Nothing party." Neither had realized that Rahm Emanuel and Heath Shuler would soon come running to the GOP's rescue, echoing their ugly racist and nativist bromides.

The screen shot above is the front page of the website of the Team America PAC, founded by Tancredo and run by Bay Buchanan, to promote xenophobia and devisive and nativist racism. But that isn't Duncan Hunter or Brian Bilbray, two Republican racist maniacs on the front page... it's Rahm's boy Heath. Nor is Shuler the only House Democrat throwing in with the worst of the Republican Know Nothings to foolishly demonize immigrants. The long, sad list of reactionary Democrats on "the team" are names that should be familiar to most DWT readers-- Democrats who have backed Bush's agenda in Iraq and here at home, like Chris Carney (PA), Jim Marshall (GA), John Barrow (GA), Nick Lampson (TX), Baron Hill (IN), Joe Donnelly (IN), Brad Ellsworth (IN), Brian Baird (WA), Jason Altmire (PA), Mike Ross (AR), Gene Taylor (MS), Melissa Bean (IL), Jim Matheson (UT), Dan Boren (OK), Leonard Boswell (IA), Allen Boyd (FL), Jim Cooper (TN), Bud Cramer (AL), Lincoln Davis (TN), etc.

This morning Max Blumenthal paints an incisive portrait of hypocrisy and incipient fascism of the leader of this disgraceful bunch of self-serving and self-righteous demagogues. "When Republican Representative Tom Tancredo isn’t railing against the 'scourge' of illegal immigration on the presidential campaign trail," Blumenthal begins, "he relaxes in the 1053 square foot basement recreation room of his Littleton, Colorado McMansion." And, of course, Tancredo hired undocumented laborers to build it for him.

During the renovation process, two illegal workers hired by Tancredo were alerted to his reputation for immigrant bashing. They went straight to the Denver Post to complain. Tancredo “doesn't want us here, but he'll take advantage of our sweat and our labor,” one of
the workers complained to the Post on September 19, 2002. “It's just not right.”

The Post report momentarily threw Tancredo on the defensive. In a fiery speech soon after the story’s publication, Tancredo blamed his foibles on the INS. “I haven't the foggiest idea how many people I may have hired in the past as taxi drivers, as waiters, waitresses, home improvement people,” he boomed from the House floor. “I haven't the foggiest idea how many of those people may have been here illegally, and it is not my job to ask them.” Then defiance gave way
to vitriol as the congressman dubbed undocumented immigrants, “the face of murder.”

Only days before the Post’s story appeared, Tancredo had personally reported an honor student profiled in the Denver Post to the INS because the 14-year-old was not a legal resident of the United States. The stunt forced the boy’s family to go into hiding. Fortunately for Tancredo, the ensuing revelations of his hiring of illegal labor fell below the radar of the national media, allowing
his anti-immigrant crusade to proceed unabated.

Tancredo proceeded to organize over 90 anti-immigration House members into an informal but powerful caucus that has effectively prevented any non-enforcement related immigration legislation from reaching the President’s desk. His Team America PAC, which is chaired by right-wing pundit Bay Buchanan, has donated tens of thousands of dollars this election cycle to nativist candidates who hope to fill Tancredo’s caucus with new blood when he retires next year. Down on the border, Tancredo announced his support for the Minutemen, providing the anti-immigrant militia with a veneer of respectability while its pistol-packing members hunt for brown-skinned evildoers.

If you'd prefer to see Congress working on real solutions to the immigration problems, while eschewing vigilante activities and demonization of groups of people, please consider making a contribution to Blue America's Accountability Moment that seeks to keep Rahm Emanuel's constituents aware of his anti-immigrant activities. Those kinds of activities may make Heath Shuler a hero in the backwoods mountains of western North Carolina, but the immigrant-heavy neighborhoods of Chicago's northside aren't as likely to celebrate Emanuel's key role in enabling the Tancredo mentality. Oh, and in case you can't read the names (above) of the other folks Heath Shuler has associated himself with, please allow me to call your attention to Heath Shuler's allies:
Ann Coulter
Phyllis Schlafly
Michelle Malkin
Pat Buchanan
John Derbyshire
Thomas Sowell

ON THANKSGIVING WEEKEND, WE SHOULD ALL REMEMBER OUR IMMIGRANT HERITAGE-- AND DO SOMETHING TO HONOR IT

No illegal aliens could ever have been more aggressive, bloodthirsty and rapacious than the ones whose arrival we celebrated yesterday. Well, the ones most of us celebrated yesterday. Roland and I went to Jitlada, our favorite East Hollywood Thai joint and talked about the great food we'd soon be eating in our favorite restaurants in Thailand. We both had som tom, green papaya salad. My part of town is vibrant and alive with immigrants from Thailand, Armenia, Mexico, Central America, Iran, Russia, China and India. The richness of this non-Pilgrim America probably isn't something narrow-minded bigots like Tom Tancredo and Heath Shuler will ever experience or grasp.

This morning's NY Times has a weighty editorial about how our political class has failed the country in terms of putting together a cohesive and practical set of policies on immigration.

Asked if she supported Mr. Spitzer, Senator Hillary Clinton tied herself in knots looking for the safest answer.

The Republican presidential candidates, meanwhile, are doggedly out-toughing one another-- even Rudolph Giuliani, who once defended but now disowns the immigrants who pulled his hard-up city out of a ditch. A freshman Democratic representative, Heath Shuler of North Carolina, has submitted an enforcement bill bristling with border fencing and punishments. Representative Tom Tancredo, Republican of Colorado, for whom restricting immigration is the first, last and only issue, says he will not run again when his term expires next year. I have done all I can, he says, like some weary gunslinger covered in blood and dust.

The natural allies of immigrants have been cowed into mumbling or silent avoidance. The Democrats’ chief strategist, Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, went so far as to declare immigration the latest “third rail of American politics.” This profile in squeamishness was on full display at the Democratic presidential debate last week in Las Vegas, when Wolf Blitzer pressed the candidates for yes-or-no answers on driver’s licenses and Mrs. Clinton, to her great discredit, said no.

This year’s federal failure will not be undone until 2009 at the earliest, while states and local governments will continue doing their own thing, creating a mishmash of immigration policies, most of them harsh and shortsighted. But the wilderness of anger into which Mr. Tancredo helped lead America is not where the country has to be on this vitally important issue, nor where it truly is.

Foolishly, many Democrats are following Emanuel, Tancredo and the Republicans down the road to political perdition. Just weeks ago GOP attempts to drum up anti-immigration hysteria and use it against Democrats in local elections failed spectacularly. With the exception of the backward racist hotbed of bigotry known as Mississippi-- where the Democrat running for governor was following the Emanuel-Shuler playbook word for word-- the Republicans lost everywhere. Emanuel looked at the data-- the new local legislative majorities in Virginia and New Jersey, the new progressive governor in Kentucky-- and still insists anti-immigrant demagoguery is the only way to go.

Blue America and our allies have been working hard to inform Emanuel's constituents about his anti-immigrant activities, a cover for the "free" trade policies he has championed, policies that have been more harmful to the American middle class than any other misguided policy-- and there were plenty-- in the last two decades. Emanuel is the ugly face of NAFTA-- he was Bill Clinton's hatchet man forcing this inherently corporatist, Republican trade agenda down the throats of unwilling Democrats-- and today he is the Democrats' ugly face of anti-immigration policies that have helped make the GOP anathema to the fastest growing population in America. Whose side is Emanuel on? Good question-- although the answer has been obvious to me for many years.

Tuesday another kind of Illinois Democrat, a forthright, grassroots progressive, John Laesch, showed that there is hope for a movement among Democrats to topple reactionary, pro-war corporatist power-mongers like Emanuel from congressional power. Unlike most Democrats, Laesch, a union carpenter, is taking on immigration straight up. His campaign posted his ideas at Daily Kos. Laesch is battling extreme right wing xenophobic Republicans and an equally clueless Blue Dog Democrat, supported by Emanuel, to replace the retiring Denny Hastert. Laesch showed up at the World Relief Immigration Services office in downtown Aurora and called for right-wing loon Jim Oberweis "to take back his anti-immigrant and pro-national ID card message portrayed in a series of mailings and TV ads... 'The idea behind this advertising campaign is to make people so afraid of immigrants that they are willing to cede their civil liberties, the right to privacy and allow for a big-brother solution like a national ID card,' said Laesch."

John wrote his own blog on this issue at Fireside 14. He pointed out that the last four soldiers from this district to lose their life while serving our country were all of Hispanic heritage.

... Laesch also brought up his adversary in the primary, Democrat Bill Foster, who "in some ways even goes further than Mr. Oberweis’ proposal." Laesch noted that Foster’s plan wants all workers in the U.S.-- not just immigrants-- to carry national ID cards as proof of employment eligibility...

"These ads," said Laesch, "are designed to make people afraid by blaming immigrants and keep people distracted from the real issues like stagnating wages, unfair trade agreements, out of control healthcare costs and the war in Iraq." Laesch rejected the idea that any human being is illegal. "At the end of the day we may have different skin colors, different languages and different cultures, but we all belong to the human race. "

Oberweis and the Blue Dog Foster (along with Emanuel) are staunch "free" traders. Laesch is for fair trade.

The Times seems willing to be dragged along-- at least sooner than our completely corrupted political class-- the correct path. "Fixing immigration," the editors write today, "is not a yes-or-no question. It’s yes and no. Or if you prefer, no and yes-- no to more illegal immigration, to uncontrolled borders and to a flourishing underground economy where employer greed feeds off worker desperation. Yes to extending the blanket of law over the anonymous, undocumented population-- through fines and other penalties for breaking the nation’s laws and an orderly path to legal status and citizenship to those who qualify."

Unlike the Shuler/Tancredo bill that Emanuel is trying to shove down Democrats' throats the way he shoved NAFTA down their throats at the behest of Bill Clinton, serious legislators know immigration is a complex problem and comprehensive reform is what is needed, not political talking points that sound good on Fox or on Lou Dobbs' infotainment show. "It rests," according to the Times "on the idea that having an undocumented underclass does the country more harm than good."

This is not “open-borders amnesty,” a false label stuck on by those who want enforcement and nothing else. It’s tough on the border and on those who sneaked across it. It’s tough but fair to employers who need immigrant workers. It recognizes that American citizens should not have to compete for jobs with a desperate population frightened into accepting rock-bottom wages and working conditions. It makes a serious effort to fix legal immigration by creating an orderly future flow of legal workers.

Americans accept this approach. The National Immigration Forum has compiled nearly two dozen polls from 2007 alone that show Americans consistently favoring a combination of tough enforcement and earned legalization over just enforcement. Elections confirm this. Straight-talking moderates like Gov. Janet Napolitano of Arizona and Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico thrive in the immigration crucible along the southern border. Those who obsess about immigration as single-issue hard-liners, like the Arizonans J. D. Hayworth and Randy Graf, have disappeared, booted by voters. Voters in Virginia this month rejected similar candidates and handed control of the State Senate to Democrats.

...America is waiting for a leader to risk saying that the best answer is not the simplest one. As John Edwards said at the last debate, “When is our party going to show a little backbone and strength and courage and speak up for those people who have been left behind?”

He was talking about the poor and people without health insurance, but he could-- and should-- have included a host of others: Business owners who want to hire legal workers. Americans who don’t want their opportunities undermined by the off-the-books economy. Children whose dreams of education and advancement are thwarted by their parents’ hopeless immigration status. And the immigrants, here and abroad, who want to find their place in a society that once welcomed their honest labor, but can’t find a way to do it anymore.

Tomorrow I will look at a hotly contested congressional race where even one of Emanuel's favored candidates thinks he's full of malarkey and ought to keep his nose out of other peoples' races. I'll have time to do that because I'm boycotting Black Friday. If you decide to do the same-- or even partially do the same-- you can divert some of your money to help with the struggle against Emanuel's xenophobia by donating even a small amount to the Accountability Moment, which is purchasing full page newspaper ads (like the one on the left which you can click on to see larger) in Spanish, Polish and Korean newspapers in his congressional district.

DENVER POST SMACKS DOWN THE TANCREDO-EMANUEL XENOPHOBIC CON GAME AGAINST IMMIGRANTS

Friday the biggest newspaper in Colorado ran dueling OpEds between David Sirota and Rahm Emanuel anti-immigration ally Tom Tancredo (R-CO). Hopefully everyone in the state will start talking about why Tancredo is a con artist for making. along with Emanuel and his stooge Heath Shuler the "dishonest argument over illegal immigration [with which they are] trying to divert our ire away from the corporate profiteers, outsourcers, wage cutters and foreclosers that buy influence-- and protection-- in Washington."

Republicans like Rep. Tom Tancredo (Colo.) are demanding the government cut off public services for undocumented workers, build a barrier at the Mexican border and force employers to verify employees' immigration status. Democrats like Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) are urging their allies to either embrace a punitive message aimed at illegal immigrants, or avoid the immigration issue altogether. And nobody asks the taboo question: What is illegal immigration actually about?

The answer is exploitation. Employers looking to maximize profits want an economically desperate, politically disenfranchised population that will accept ever worse pay and working conditions. Illegal immigrants perfectly fit the bill.

Politicians know exploitation fuels illegal immigration. But they refuse to confront it because doing so would mean challenging their financiers.

Instead we get lawmakers chest-thumping about immigration enforcement while avoiding a discussion about strengthening wage and workplace safety enforcement-- proposals that address the real problem.

Equally deplorable, these same lawmakers keep supporting trade policies that make things worse. Just last week, both Emanuel and Tancredo voted to expand NAFTA into the Southern Hemisphere. This is the same trade model that not only decimated American jobs and wages, but also increased illegal immigration by driving millions of Mexican farmers off their land, into poverty and ultimately over our southern border in search of subsistence work.

...Instead we get lawmakers chest-thumping about immigration enforcement while avoiding a discussion about strengthening wage and workplace safety enforcement-- proposals that address the real problem.

Equally deplorable, these same lawmakers keep supporting trade policies that make things worse. Just last week, both Emanuel and Tancredo voted to expand NAFTA into the Southern Hemisphere. This is the same trade model that not only decimated American jobs and wages, but also increased illegal immigration by driving millions of Mexican farmers off their land, into poverty and ultimately over our southern border in search of subsistence work.

Is anyone standing up against this crass exploitation? If you're a regular DWT reader you know that we are, as are our pals at Crooks and Liars, Firedoglake, Digby's Hullabaloo and the Seminal, doing just that. We've teamed up with Illinois' largest immigrants rights coalition to help make sure that voters in Chicago understand that even if Rahm Emanuel has a "D" next to his name, he acts like Tom Delay and votes on trade and immigration policy like Tom Tancredo. We're running full page newspaper ads in Spanish, Polish and Korean that urge people in IL-05 to call Emanuel now at (773) 267-5926 and tell him, "Stop being afraid to fight for immigrants, and start acting like a real leader." If you'd like to help us keep this campaign going, our Accountability Moment site is open... 24/7.

RAHM EMANUEL-- THE TOM TANCREDO OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY

If he had a finger...

Yesterday's L.A. Times carries another example of how electing low life political hacks-- rather than statesmen-- to Congress insures that difficult, thorny problems don't really get tackled in a serious way. The story is subtitled Some think the party can toughen its image on illegal immigration without straying from traditional positions. That would be the penultimate congressional non-statesman, and hack without parallel, Rahm Emanuel (D-IL).

After Republican xenophobes were beaten in elections everywhere last week, it was widely accepted that voters were not going to decide elections based on demagoguery over immigration and that what people actually want are well thought out, comprehensive reforms. Emanuel, in charge of Democratic congressional messaging has his little shoppe of horrors busy rewriting history.

Top Democratic elected officials and strategists are engaged in an internal debate over toughening the party's image on illegal immigration, with some worried that Democrats' relatively welcoming stance makes them vulnerable to GOP attacks in the 2008 election.

Advocates of such a change cite local and state election results last week in Virginia and New York, where Democrats used sharper language and get-tough proposals to stave off Republican efforts to paint the party as weak on the issue.

In Virginia, for instance, where Democrats took control of the state Senate, one high- profile victory came in the Washington suburbs, where the winner distributed mailings in the campaign's closing days proclaiming his opposition to in-state college tuition for illegal immigrants.

The party's calibration could also be seen in New York, where a number of Democrats won local elections in part by opposing a plan by Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer to issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, and in the presidential campaign, in which party front-runner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has struggled to explain whether she supports the Spitzer plan or not.

In Congress, a group of conservative Democrats, led by freshman Rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina, introduced legislation last week calling for more Border Patrol agents, heightened surveillance and additional requirements that employers verify the legal status of workers.

"Top Democratic elected officials and strategists" would refer to old school collaborationist Democratic hacks Emanuel and Steny Hoyer. And in case you're not a regular DWT reader, let me emphasize that "freshman Rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina" in a dull and reactionary Emanuel puppet acting on his master's behalf.

The Emanuel (Shuler)/Tancredo approach "does not include measures to create a path to citizenship for millions of illegal workers, measures that recently had been supported by Democrats nationally." Emanuel has been pushing his "move right on immigration" stance to Democratic candidates. According to a post by Matt Stoller today at OpenLeft, Larry Kissell has already bitten and I've been hearing similar mumblings from other candidates who take Emanuel-- and the money and Inside the Beltway organizations he controls-- seriously. The Latino members of the Democratic caucus... fuming-- and rightfully so.

The internal debate has grown emotional in recent days, boiling over on Friday during a tense encounter on the House floor between Rep. Joe Baca (D-Rialto), chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.).

The caucus was upset because some House Democrats had backed a Republican measure protecting employers that impose certain English-only rules-- the latest in what Baca called a series of frustrations with the party leadership's approach to immigration.

"We're tired of people trying to scapegoat the immigrants or Hispanics as a platform," Baca said. "Republicans have done it, and Democrats have followed... because they're afraid they're going to lose their elections. But we got elected to represent all communities, not to vote based on whether we're going to get reelected."

Last year Emanuel misinterpreted public sentiment against Bush's Iraq war and demanded, as chairman of the DCCC, that Democratic candidates turn down the rhetoric on the war. Fortunately many current Congressmembers-- like Bruce Braley (IA), John Hall (NY), Patrick Murphy (PA), Joe Sestak (PA), Jerry McNerney (CA)-- ignored his idiotic and tone deaf advice and didn't suffer the same ignominious defeat the way Democrats who listened to him-- such as Lois Murphy (PA), Ken Lucas, Tammy Duckworth and Christine Jennings (FL)-- did. A hack strategist without any depth of political understanding or vision for-- or interest in-- long-term party building, Emanuel has decided to try to persuade his party to sacrifice the tremendous success they've been having with the long-term goal of solidifying the bluer and bluer Latino base.

The issue has proved vexing for Republicans as well, with most of the party's conservative base pushing for measures to strengthen the border. President Bush, meanwhile, backed the Senate bill, and his former political advisor Karl Rove [a much smarter and more effective-- if equally ruthless-- strategist than Emanuel] has long supported a moderate stance on immigration as part of a strategy to lure Latino voters to the GOP.

Many Republicans believe the party's attempts last year to paint Democrats as weak on illegal immigration-- including television ads that some critics saw as playing on ethnic stereotypes-- damaged the GOP's image among Latino voters and helped put Democrats in control of Congress.

But Emanuel and his puppets are busy making up for that and negating Democratic headway with this fastest of all voting blocs in America. I wonder if he consulted his new ally, Tom Tancredo, on his brand spanking new advertisement, one that might make someone think Bush's fear tactics have been positively moderate: