May 04, 2007 03:17 PM UTC

"Whether you believe in your heart in the things that you say"

•  
• by: Tancredo Watch

What a pathetic joke. The one sound bite that Tancredo gave in the debate – and it’s a damnable lie as far as he’s concerned:

He sat up there on the stage and tried to convince the American people that the key for being a successful president (like Ronald Reagan) is “whether you believe in your heart the things that you say.” Here’s the YouTube clip that his own campaign has proudly put on YouTube (until MSNBC yanks it, anyway):

Remember, folks, this comes from a guy who made a solemn pledge to his constituents, contributors, supporters and voters that he would serve only three terms in Congress if elected, and who repeated that pledge over and over and over again, using it to win two more terms in office before cravenly breaking it.

This is a guy who said in October 2001 that keeping his pledge was “the overriding” issue and principle – that integrity mattered more than anything – and who then a year later said he wasn’t going to keep his pledge after all, claiming that “God” had told him to break his pledge.

What a pathetic joke!

Look, this isn’t about being for or against illegal immigration. I can respect someone like Duncan Hunter, who by all accounts did a good job in the debate, and who has a personal record that he can be proud of, and who is almost Tancredo’s mirror image when it comes to illegal immigration (a point that makes Tancredo pretty uncomfortable). Hunter is a member of the Immigration Reform Caucus, just like Tancredo. I would like Tancredo to explain why he wouldn’t even support Hunter if Hunter were to get the Republican nomination.

This is about personal integrity, folks. Other Republican conservative politicians who made personal term limits promises recently – Bob Schaffer, Bill Armstrong, most recently Senator Wayne Allard – kept those promises even if they later came to regret them and to realize that term limits are a bad idea. They all had the same reason for keeping their promises: because part of being a person with integrity is keeping your promises: “whether you believe in your heart in the things that you say.”

Tancredo talks the talk – but he doesn’t walk the walk. He is not deserving of our respect or our vote until he apologizes for breaking his term limits promise, and until he belatedly keeps that promise.