You know it’s bad when even the guy who once called Miami a “third world country” is telling you to chill out.
Last weekend, former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo told the Denver Post that leading Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump “needs to be a little bit more artful” when discussing immigration with press.
Of course, Tancredo — once one of most anti-immigrant hardliners in the House, with perhaps only Steve King giving him a run for his money — doesn’t really disagree all that much with Trump’s comments, according to the Post.
The problem, according to Tancredo, is that Trump just doesn’t know how to express his anti-immigrant sentiments in a more palatable manner for the rest of us.
“He should take lessons from me on how to talk to the press,” Tancredo said. “For a small fee — no, actually for a very large fee — I will help him out. You’ve got to learn how to talk about it, which takes years of practice, which God knows I’ve had.”
We’ll have to disagree with that last one though, because while Tom has indeed had years of spewing anti-immigrant rhetoric, he’s not much more artful than Trump, either.
In fact, Colorado Republicans groaned in unison when Tancredo announced he was running for Governor last year, fearing his nativist rhetoric would kill the party’s chances in a state where Latinos are 14% of the eligible electorate (Tancredo lost the primary, anyway).
But even Tancredo realizes the power of the booming Latino vote, especially in states like Colorado. When Tancredo boycotted that Univision debate years ago, he also vowed to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that he “would not advertise in Spanish.”
But during last year’s unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign, Tancredo not only ran Spanish-language radio ads, but broke his vow by launching a “Viva Tancredo” website.
Oops.