Why have the good immigration candidates gone nowhere?

Jason writes:

I am looking for a response to a question I cannot seem to put my finger on. The two most conservative Presidential candidates were two congressman, Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter. Supposedly two of the most pressing matters in this country that get the general public all riled up are the illegal alien invasion of our country and the unfair trade practices of our enemies. And yet neither man could ever break out of the lower single digits. Instead, we are left with what I continue to call two RINOs, a wannabe and Mr. Hollyweird Johnny Come Lately. [LA replies: I’m not sure who the last two are.]

I am of course very disappointed that Tancredo did not stick it out at least through the first three primaries. My hope is he runs for governor of Colorado and then comes back to run for president later. I had some events scheduled on his behalf in New Jersey and was heading to NH next weekend. That is over now.

My question is, what happened? How is it that supposedly these topics get everyone all pumped up and the candidate who was best on this topic had to drop out and endorse someone we hope will be just okay on the topic?

As for the Romney endorsement, he is the best of all those whom we all like least, if that makes any sense.

I also wanted to follow up on Ron Paul, he was on Glenn Beck the other night for the entire hour. He was given the chance to tell the truthers to get lost, and he did not do so. He of course said he did not think that the government was behind 9/11, but he did not tell those that do think this that he wanted nothing to do with them.

LA replies

There’s no cosmic answer to your question. We in fact did very well in getting Thompson on our side, but he so far has not been a candidate who has won people over. Tancredo similarly is not a compelling speaker for most people, though I like him a lot. Hunter IMO is a stiff without a personality, without any facial expression other than an unchanging stern glare. I’ve seen the guy in Congress for 20 years and I feel depressed every time I look at him.

These three all have the understanding of the issue, but none has been an attention-getting candidate.

Tim W. writes:

Tancredo and Hunter failed to gain traction because they are members of the U.S. House. Today’s voters expect presidential nominees to have held a major office to gain “experience.” That means they have to have been a senator, a governor, or a vice-president. While it makes some sense to want the nominee to have experience, there’s no logical reason why a one-term senator should be considered more experienced than a ten-term house member. And in terms of foreign policy and many national issues, a house member probably has more experience than a governor.

But people just don’t see house members (who represent small precincts which are often no bigger than a county, or even a neighborhood in the case of urban representatives) as being in the big leagues. It’s unfortunate, but that’s how people think. Obama has little experience, but he’s a U.S. senator and that makes him a “big deal.”

Perhaps Rudy Giuliani’s good poll showings have contradicted this attitude, but in the public mind his reign as mayor of NYC is the equivalent of a governorship, and his position in the spotlight on 9/11 is seen (ludicrously) as foreign policy experience.

Other exceptions were the elder Bush’s decent showing against Ronald Reagan in the 1980 GOP race (Bush had a foreign policy record) and, of course, Eisenhower, whose larger than life status as a WWII hero eclipsed his lack of office holding experience.

I guess Perot’s strong independent campaigns were exceptions. Heaven only knows how to account for him! I suppose his vast fortune accounts for his strong showing.

Ron Paul, a house member, has gotten a lot of press for having some offbeat views, but my guess is he’ll go nowhere once people actually start voting.

LA replies:

Just one qualification. To say that Eisenhower became president because he was a World War II “hero” is not accurate and diminishes his actual experience. Audie Murphy was a hero. Eisenhower was the Supreme Allied Commander leading the largest military campaign in history consisting of an alliance of several major Western powers—military and political experience at the highest level.

Andy K. writes:

I think Jason asks the wrong question. If immigration really has become such a “hot” issue, the question should be: Why are there so few restrictionist candidates to begin with? If it really has become one of the key issues for 2008, shouldn’t immigration be similar to how abortion has been all these years, a very polarizing issue between the parties, with one side having nearly all their candidates strongly for it and the other party nearly all strongly against it.

This has been on my mind for several election cycles now, and I can’t come up with a satisfying answer. Is it PC? Is it modern liberalism?

This would explain it partially, but again, if it really is an issue that most voters say is right up there with the economy and Iraq , we really have a vacuum that should be rather easy to fill.

LA replies:

Yes, it’s modern liberalism. And it’s not surprising. Immigration is not like other issues. A current view stated by many “conservatives” as well as liberals is that opposing illegal immigration makes you a racist. McCain, Bush, Linda Chavez, and many others, have said this. In modern liberal society, immigration control/restriction will always be a tough issue, never a “normal” issue.

Clark Coleman writes:

1) Many superficial reasons affect candidate popularity, as discussed. It is one thing to want a President who is not a complete dolt in front of a microphone (e.g. George W. Bush), and another thing to complain about Tancredo and Hunter and Thompson as not being exciting speakers. We would probably have to psychoanalyze the whole nation to figure out how we could elect a dolt twice and then complain about these three as public speakers and personalities.

2) Most voters are influenced by the media in that they treat political campaigns as horse races. Who has early name recognition? Jump on his bandwagon! This leads to a huge problem for conservatives in the GOP. The name recognition candidates will come from media centers, which are liberal strongholds. Thus, we will get New England Republicans and Rudy Giuliani and Arnold Schwarzenegger and anti-GOP “mavericks” like McCain as the “leading figures” of the GOP, even though they do not represent the mainstream of the party.

However, there is hope. Grass roots reaction against these blue-state posers led to the Thompson candidacy. A similar reaction, combined with the incurable superficiality and ignorance of my fellow religious conservatives, led to the Huckabee surge. One way or another, GOP voters need to send a message to all the big money donors to the campaigns of the media darlings (Giuliani, McCain, et al.): You are simply wasting your money. In the future, find the Thompsons and support them early, else you are wasting your money. Until the country club Republicans get this message, the GOP will always be in a struggle for its soul in every election cycle.

Where does Romney fit into this analysis? Who knows. Is he a New England non-conservative who benefits from early media exposure and fund raising, or is his 2007 conversion to conservatism to be taken seriously? I don’t trust “conversions on the road to Des Moines,” as Tancredo put it.

LA replies:

That Tancredo line is a good one.

Here’s an example that supports Mr. Coleman’s point: Giuliani. Because all the support, money and attention went to him so early and prematurely, and he was treated as the putative favorite for the nomination, his flaws were ignored, and the other candidates were ignored. By the time the movers and shakers stirred from their sleep and started to see Giuliani’s serious flaws, it was already very late in the cycle.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 29, 2007 03:20 PM | Send