The Texas Observer

Why settle for Rick Perry’s tokenism on sealing the border when there are Republican officials out there like soon-to-be ex-Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo, a GOP Presidential candidate. At least Tancredo is honest about what he hopes to do to the border. Rick always has you wondering whether he is just catering to the base. Tancredo really means it.

Of Perry’s cameras, Tancredo said, “They are only of course as good as the people you put behind them… What good is it? It is silly. I don’t know that your governor has the guts to do what’s necessary…”

So what’s necessary according to Tancredo? In a phone conversation with the congressman who was in New Hampshire yesterday I asked him about his vision for the border.

“I absolutely believe that a fence is necessary to protect [us] from the invasion that’s occurring,” Tancredo said. “It’s really three layers of defense,” he added, describing a 15-feet-high metal fence, curved at its top, with wire, then a patrol road, and then another fence (similar to what is described in the EIS). Tancredo said the fence would have to be “sensored” — to detect ruptures, ladders, and even whether someone is trying to dig under it.

“I’d go the length of the (U.S.-Mexico) border, and then I’d start on the northern border and go as far as possible,” he said.

Tancredo says the terrain and duty involved in border enforcement is perfect for training troops that will eventually head to Iraq or Afghanistan. He talked about a time he observed a training exercise featuring 100 Marines patrolling a section of the border, while utilizing unmanned aerial drones. Tancredo said the Marines’ leader praised the experience as the “best exercise” he could imagine for his troops.

The exercise led to the kind of greeting for the undocumented of which Tancredo approves.

“They said, ‘Hi! Welcome to America,’” he said. “‘Now spread ‘em…’”

It sure seems to be working in Iraq and Afghanistan, Tom.

As for the environmental impact, Tancredo said Congress has already given President Bush the power, in the REAL ID Act, to waive those issues. “The expense is worth it,” Tancredo said, “Because you have a real, physical barrier.”

Tancredo said the mayors in the Valley that don’t want a border fence are just a little too loyal to Mexico.

“They’ve got a constituency they’re trying to placate — and a loyalty to Mexico,” Tancredo said. “There is this loyalty question.” He said he told the mayors that if they disliked the idea so much, he’d build the wall around the northern limits of their cities.

Fortunately, Tancredo barely registers in the polls. He won’t be building any border walls on his own anytime soon.

Howard Dean failed to go much of anywhere in 2004 — but he managed shortly thereafter to secure the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee, and he transformed his presidential campaign into Democracy For America — which still has subsidiaries across the U.S., including Democracy For Texas.

U.S. Senate candidate Rick Noriega is tapping into this political structure, and according to folks associated with his campaign will likely gain the endorsement of DFA — which would be on top of the recent endorsement by DFT.

Karl-Thomas Musselman is publisher of the Burnt Orange Report (a slice of the world wide web that most Texas Democrats know well). He is also affiliated with DFT.

Musselman let readers know last month that he has signed on as Online Coordinator for Noriega. He notes that, if Noriega gains DFA’s endorsement, it will be the first endorsement by the national organization in any U.S. Senate race in 2008 — which certainly says something about how Lone Star politics has changed in the last four years.

Musselman points to “that unique story that Rick has.” Noriega has served on the border, with hands-on experience on the front lines of the right wing’s pet issue. He also served, as Off the Kuff’s Charles Kuffner noted, in Afghanistan, and will be able to speak truth to power about the war.

“That energy is going to be helpful,” Musselman says. “That endorsement is a measure of the excitement…”

Musselman pointed to the record of John Cornyn (R-Texas) to explain why he thinks Noriega deserves such a high-profile endorsement.

He cited “votes that infuriate” like Cornyn’s insistence on opposing the S-CHIP bill in even its most diluted form. Musselman said Cornyn is in “lock-step with the president, who is no longer popular, even in Texas.”

But above all, Musselman says, Noriega “can speak with authority on the war…”

Dean made his mark criticizing Bush and Cheney’s war of choice — back before it was fashionable. Dean also introduced the political world to the phenomenon of online fundraising. Now that San Antonio lawyer Mikal Watts has dropped out, Rick Noriega will need those online constituencies to help him not only with fundraising but also in getting the word out about his candidacy since there won’t be the free media attention from a contested primary. But even with the online community a fairy tale ending for this Cinderella story is going to take tremendous work and a lot of luck. It has been a long time since a Democrat won statewide in Texas.

Mikal Watts has announced that he is dropping his bid to take on John Cornyn for the U.S. Senate. One has to wonder if the scandal over Mauricio Celis had anything to do with it.

Here is a statement courtesy of the Quorum Report:

“For the last five months I have been exploring a race for the United States Senate because I believe that our junior senator, John Cornyn, has let Texas down and is more concerned with his cronies and friends in Washington than with what’s best for Texas.

“It is hard to express the gratitude I feel for all the support my family and I have received as we have pursued this effort. I know that our vision for the future of Texas is one that all of our friends and supporters share. It’s been one of the greatest blessings of my life for their faith in me, and for all of their hard work over the past months. While the decision not to seek the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate has been a difficult one, I know that it is the right one for my family at this time.”

Immediately after his announcement that he was endorsing Rudy Giuliani for president, criticism started pouring in from traditional Republican stalwarts that one normally sees lined up alongside Gov. Rick Perry. From Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson to Operation Rescue’s Randall Terry, the GOP’s cultural conservatives and several of his erstwhile allies excoriated the governor.

Warren Mass over at the John Birch Society took issue with Perry’s sincerity and motives, picking up on the analogy Perry used to explain how he could possibly endorse a pro-gun-control, pro-choice, pro-civil-union candidate like Giuliani. Perry reportedly said he wouldn’t refuse to buy a pickup truck just because it had a part or two he didn’t like.

Mass exclaimed: Lacking respect for the dignity of human life isn’t the same thing as missing chrome wheels, it’s more like missing an engine! (Mass can’t seem to understand why Perry didn’t support fellow Texan Ron Paul.)

Patterson asked Harvey Kronberg’s Quorum Report, “What happened to conservative principles as the first measure of who to support for any office?”

He continued: Is this the same governor who upstaged Arnold in (California) with a message that Republicans need to return to their conservative roots if they expect to win elections? I guess the red meat he was serving in (California) was ‘rare’ as opposed to ‘well done.’ (See the Observer’s take on the speech here and here.)

The wild-eyed anti-abortion activist Randall Terry, not known for his subtlety, delivered perhaps the most scalding attack, comparing Perry to Judas Iscariot:

So-called ‘pro-life Republicans’ that are endorsing Rudy—like TX Governor Rick Perry, or NY (sic) Representative Pete Sessions, are typical treacherous politicians. They have betrayed innocent blood to support a child-killer; we can only wonder what 30 pieces of silver they are seeking.

We noticed when Giuiliani brought Sessions out a few weeks ago. Now Sessions and Perry are being lumped together. Curiously, however, Terry really gets to the point at the end of his diatribe. He says a Hillary Clinton victory in 2008 would be far better for the pro-life movement than Giuliani.

An enemy outside your camp makes you vigilant; an enemy in your tent makes you dead. Hillary would unite us, and she could be defeated in 4 years; Giuliani would destroy the cohesion of the right wing.

There’s something vaguely Freudian about the right’s obsession with Hillary. They keep saying they have to move heaven and earth to stop her, but deep down, they really, really need her. I know, it sounds like bad psychoanalysis—but I’ll just let Randall Terry have the last word:

As horrifying as it seems at first blush, Hillary Clinton would probably be a better president for the Pro-Life movement (and the innocent children we seek to protect) than Rudy Giuliani.

According to Wayne Slater, the Giuliani campaign has a secret weapon to counter skittish social conservatives.

After a suggestion from Focus on the Family’s James Dobson that he might back a third party run to counter Rudy Giuliani’s pro-choice proclivities, Slater says Giuliani’s campaign brought Congressmasn Pete Sessions (R-Dallas) out to emphasize Rudy’s conservative bona fides.

Sessions, a clenched-fist pro-lifer and gun lover, said there were plenty of differences between Rudy Giuliani and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-New York). The not so sub subtext: If you don’t support Rudy, you’ll get Hillary — the monster under the bed for Republicans, especially in Texas.

But Giuliani, who has had trouble with proxies before, might want to take a hard look at Sessions, as the Observer did this past April. The Observer story detailed Sessions’ reputation for being rash as well as ambitious. And apparently, he’s not particularly well-liked among many Republicans in Dallas.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson was in Austin last night at the new Mexican American Cultural Center, although the fundraiser was closed to the media.

Former Texas Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos (D-Austin) was on hand to greet Richardson and help him raise money. Richardson is currently in fifth place in Texas according to the Texas Democratic Party’s ePrimary — although everyone knows the poll is not scientific (North Carolina’s John Edwards won).

Richardson spoke to the press at Austin Bergstrom International Airport earlier in the day, where he burnished his credentials as the ‘all-troops-out-of-Iraq’ candidate for president with a jab at his opponents.

Richardson pointedly criticized Illinois Sen. Barack Obama’s plan for withdrawal because it leaves some U.S. forces in place. A spokesperson for the campaign said that Obama’s statement earlier in the day suggested he would bring all troops out, but pointed out that Obama was talking about combat troops — saying Obama’s plan would leave some non-combat troops in place.

“One of the clear distinctions (Richardson) has made is that the other candidates leave troops behind,” she said.

Obama has made a lot of hay out of the fact that he has opposed the war from the start — as opposed to frontrunner Hillary Clinton (D-New York).

In fairness, here’s what Obama said as he interviewed General David Petraeus this week:

…after devoting $1 trillion, which is what this thing optimistically will end up having cost, thousands of American lives, the creation of an environment in which Al Qaeda in Iraq could operate because it didn’t exist prior to our invasion, that we have increased terrorist recruitment around the world, that Iran has been strengthened, that bin Laden and Al Qaeda are stronger than at anytime since 2001, and that the process of Iraqi reconstruction and their standard of living would continue to be lower than it was preinvasion…

Clinton has been just as critical on Iraq, so Richardson may have a tough time breaking into the top three via his withdrawal stance, but it is certainly a distinction worth noting, especially when conservative pundits like Dick Morris are licking their chops at the prospect of Iraq becoming ‘Hillary’s war.’

“Fred Thompson looks like a Tennessee moonshiner who got rich — somebody sent him to a haberdasher when he heard he was going to Washington… Attitudes of Thomp-Baker & Gurney are critical — they related (sic) to Nixon’s survival chances — rats off a sinking ship…”

— Hunter S. Thompson “The Notebooks” Rolling Stone #144, 1973

That’s Dr. Thompson being particularly hard on the counsel for the minority in the Watergate hearings, which, believe it or not, featured Hunter in one of the front rows behind the witness table. Hunter took absurd but interesting notes throughout the hearings, sometimes from the committee room, sometimes from beside his hotel pool, and occasionally sitting naked on his porch in Colorado (or so he says).

Dr. Thompson seemed oddly fascinated with the young lawyer from Tennessee — and I think he would be surprised but not shocked to know that in September 2007, Fred Thompson would be announcing (finally) his campaign for Nixon’s old job.

Fred is fresh from his second-place finish in the illustrious Texas Straw Poll, and the big showing has provided a nice segue into the lustre of his official announcement, set for midnight tonight — even though he’s been quasi-officially running for president for months.

Echoing his Texas Straw Poll coup, he enters the race in second place (behind Rudy Giuliani), if you believe any of the early national polls. However, Fred is being taken seriously also because he is and has been a proponent of the conservative values that play a critical role in the GOP primary fight, namely a dogmatic anti-abortion stance and a no-holds-barred, own-your-own-tank approach to gun rights. Fred’s web site says as much, quoting the New York Daily News:

Thompson is absolutely pro-life, period, no waffling about it… He is solidly pro-Second Amendment, period, no dithering… He’s a gung-ho war on terror man, a no-nonsense border security man.

Fred’s role in the Watergate hearings is certainly worth another look, if only because it is a matter of record, and heck of a lot of new details have been released pertaining to the scandal in the intervening decades. Hunter also reminds us that Nixon faced a primary fight against a Romney — George Romney, the father of the GOP’s likely early third-place candidate, Mitt Romney. Notably however, Fred starts off as a likely favorite in the early primary states of South Carolina and (a little later) California, which certainly has him well-positioned for a tight, packed Republican primary.

It seems like his acting career has made many forget that he has ever been anything other than a gruff, tough tv lawyer. There are other roles more memorable. My favorite is the time he played a sexually harassing, wage-slashing jerk of a boss on Roseanne. Then of course there is his role as a lobbyist for federal pro-choice provisions for his client the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association. It’s already fun watching him try to explain that to the base, and he isn’t even a candidate yet.

In any case the real upshot of tonight’s announcement will be the fact that Fred now has to get on the same field as the other players and take questions from debaters, offer a position on Iraq, etc… While they are at it, someone should ask him what he thinks of Nixon’s deceit — as well as whether or not as president he would continue the Nixonian practices of the current administration.

p.s. here’s a link to the definition of haberdasher.