Tancredo Update: His Office is Next to Ellison’s???

February 14, 2007 | Permalink

There’s more meaty updates on Tancredo, but first the most interesting piece of news. His office is next to Dem. Rep Keith Ellison (who, you may remember, is a Muslim.) Tancredo has had … shall we say … an interesting history of comments on that particular religion, including, “Well, what if you said something like — if this happens in the United States, and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sites.”

Well, last week, their offices had a conflict. It seems Tancredo was having a cigar in his office (the anti-smoking legislation passed in Washington does not apply to federal buildings). Some of the smoke went through his walls to Ellison’s office, where his press secretary contacted the Superintendant who referred him to the Capitol Police. The police showed up, and, well, you have an item tailor made for Bill O’Reilly.

The story is a non-story - a slightly funny yarn that’s not ‘news’ in any real sense. The interesting part? Apparently, freshman house members can choose their own office, so it seems Ellison wanted to be there, although that is far from confirmed. Anyway, this will probably make Tancredo look less like a nut and more like a reasonable person, so he might get more traction on the Republican side, although I highly doubt anything will come out of this that doesn’t end up giving me a headache. (And for the record, if smoke comes through my walls, I’m probably going to start calling authorities too. No matter who I am or where my office is.)

Now, on to the real Tancredo information:

Tancredo says he is not a single issue candidate. And then he directly proceeds to tie every other issue to immigration. “You cannot run for president on a single issue. … [But immigration] is the issue that propels me — and it has [multiple] facets. … It’s amazing how many things are connected to the issue of immigration.” He also says, “It touches our educational system, our medical system, our national security, our culture.” And he continues: “We are risking the development of a bilingual nation and a multicultural nation, which is almost an oxymoron. … It is very difficult to maintain something like that, especially [under] the kind of threat situation we’re in today with fundamentalist Islam.” So apparently he’s not a single issue candidate - it’s just the election ought be about a single issue.

Tancredo supports withdrawal of troops from Iraq in November if benchmarks aren’t met, but has not yet decided on how to vote on the House resolution criticizing the surge.

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Written by John · Filed Under Immigration, Iraq, Issues, Republican Ticket, Tom Tancredo