Tancredo confirms bid for presidency

U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo.

U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., one of the staunchest advocates for secure U.S. borders, today formalized his bid for the GOP nomination for president.

"While we fight around the world to defend our nation, we are entrenched now in a struggle here at home to define it," he said during his announcement on a radio talk show in Iowa. "The crisis of illegal immigration threatens not only our economy and our security, but our very identity."

He said the "great tradition of American assimilation has broken down" and "the melting post has cracked, and our Founding ideals are leaking through."

"For too long Americans have been force-fed candidates who ignore or mock their valid concerns about the security of our borders, the enforcement of our immigration laws, and the survival of our national heritage. That ends today," said Tancredo."

He's represented Colorado's 6th District since 1998, and earlier served in the Colorado Legislature and the U.S. Department of Education under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

During his years in Congress he's been given "A" grades by The American Conservative Union, National Rifle Association, Family Research Council, National Right to Life Committee, Americans for Better Immigration, National Federal of Independent Business and National Taxpayers Union.

In 1999, he started the bipartisan Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus and by the end of the 109th Congress it included 104 members. He's outlined his primary focus in his 2006 book, In Mortal Danger: The Battle for America's Border and Security.

On other issues, he believes:

Education is best left in the hands of parents and a voucher system is needed to promote school choice, whether those are public, private or parochial.
Social Security needs to be saved for the long term by shifting from a defined benefits approach to a defined contribution approach.
A flat tax or national sales tax is desperately needed because the current tax scheme is complex and unfair.
Activist judges have to stop "ripping democracy from the hands of the people on the very issues they most want their voices heard. These issues include gay marriage, religion and public life."

He said most important is the re-establishment of security on U.S. borders, not only to reduce the threats from outside the country but to stabilize the economy within. He said billions of dollars are spent providing for people who are not U.S. citizens.

He said that he needed to enter the race because "no one is going to make this the primary issue of their campaign."

Earlier, he had announced, as his first step toward a presidential run, that he was launching a exploratory campaign committee.

"Illegals coming into America are sure to be front and center in the next presidential election here," Neil Cavuto said on a June broadcast of the popular Fox News show, "Your World with Neil Cavuto," "and Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo certainly knows it. He owns this issue. And straw polls show that, if he were to run for president, he just might well be president."

Cavuto posed the question to Tancredo: "Over the months I have talked to you, as this immigration issue has heated up, your poll numbers have moved up." When the host asked if Tancredo would run for president, the five-term congressman and chairman of the House Immigration Reform Caucus responded: "Neil, I will run for president if I cannot get ... any of the serious candidates to really take this on. My purpose is to make immigration the focal point of any national debate on a presidential election."

Tancredo added: "Your responsibility as a candidate for president is to do every single thing you can to tell the people what you believe to be the greatest threats to the nation and how you would deal with them. And then, you know what? If they buy it, OK, you're elected. If they don't, you have done your best."

The congressman also didn't mince words the previous night on Fox News' "Hannity & Colmes" show, saying: "Mexico is aiding and abetting an invasion of this country. They are part of the problem. In fact, they are creating situations along that border, using their own military, to protect drug trafficking into the United States, pushing their own people into the United States for a variety of reasons. It is an invasion."

Living up to his reputation for candor, Tancredo explains in his book how the economic success and historical military prowess of the United States have transformed a nation founded on Judeo-Christian principles of right and wrong into an overindulgent, self-deprecating, immoral cesspool of depravity.

His recipe for turning things around?

Without strong, moral leadership, without a renewed sense of purpose, without a rededication to family and community, without shunning the race hustlers and pop-culture sham artists, without protecting borders, language and culture, the nation that once was "the land of the free and home of the brave" and the "one last best hope of mankind" will repeat the catastrophic mistakes of the past, he writes.

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