Tom Tancredo.

• Author: Kounalakis, Markos
• Position: THE Monthly INTERVIEW - Colorado congressional representative - Interview

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Just as conservative strategist Grover Norquist admires Vladimir Lenin, hard core progressives might learn a thing or two from Tom Tancredo. The Colorado congressman and long-shot presidential candidate has for years been pushing for a restrictionist policy on immigration. His efforts have finally paid off. In 2006, the GOP House embraced a hard-line stance on border control as its strategy for winning the midterm elections. This year, presidential candidates are finding that immigration has become a litmus-test issue in the Republican primaries. Admittedly, Tancredo's triumph is not necessarily good for the GOP--the party's antics in Congress in 2006 undid years of effort by Karl Rove to welcome Hispanics into the Republican fold--but it nevertheless stands as a case study in how an extremist position can reshape an entire party's political debate. Tancredo recently explained to the Washington Monthly's Markos Kounalakis and Peter Laufer how it's done

WM: Why have you become a pariah?

TT: Well, I am perhaps the most visible member of Congress--and certainly now the most visible person running for president of the United States--on the issue of immigration. What happens is, you provide people with some space to get into where they can say, "That guy is a racist xenophobe. That guy is just so crazy that we can take a more moderate stance." To tell you the truth, that's okay with me. It is not the worst thing in the world to have changed the debate so significantly, at least among Republicans running for office, that they are willing to say things like "We will secure the border" and "We will go after employers." That's the moderate position now.

WM: How has the administration responded to that shift?

TT: The last attempt that the administration put all its hope in, a Senate bill a couple of months ago, the president said to everyone, "This is what's going to pass, I'll see you at the signing ceremony." That's what he said. And the leadership of the House and Senate were all agreeing to it. But something happened that I haven't seen since I've been in Congress. The phones at the Senate offices were shut down because of overload. On Tuesday, we had only thirty-six senators on our side, and on Thursday, we had fifty-three. Every single vote that changed was a senator running for reelection in 2008. Thank God for talk radio and the Internet!

WM: Where do we come together on this? How do those of us who disagree with...