Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo says the Senate’s failure to adopt immigration reform will be the undoing of John McCain’s presidential campaign. Tancredo and McCain are both vying for the Republican Party nomination, but are on opposite sides of the immigration issue. Tancredo supports tougher penalties and deportation of illegal immigrants, while McCain supports giving those illegals in the U.S. a path to citizenship.
Trancredo says the silver lining in the fact they have debated the bill and McCain has pushed the bill so hard, “is that it probably means that there will never be a President John McCain.”
Tancredo also criticized President Bush for supporting the immigration reform bill. “The President is desperate for a domestic policy win. Disparate. And I believe it is both arrogance and obstinance that pushes him in this direction,” Trancredo says. Immigration reform is the centerpiece of Trancredo’s campaign, but says while the bill appears dead for the year, that doesn’t mean his bid for the White House is over.
Trancredo says the President is ultimately going to be the ultimate determinate in the issue. He says just bringing the issue ahead is one thing, but getting a president to follow through is another thing. President Bush has accused opponents of the bill like Trancredo of trying to scare the American people on the issue. But Trancredo says that’s what people say when the no longer have an intellectual argument to make. Tancredo made his comments during the taping of the Iowa Public Television program “Iowa Press.”