Out of office, off an aborted presidential run and “working harder than ever,” former Rep. Tom Trancredo touched down in the Belly of the Beast on Tuesday to hurl some red meat at the local coven of his national base. He was visiting a local meeting of the paleo-con leaning Robert Taft Club, named for the presidential scion and longtime Senate Republican Leader who voiced his Midwestern skepticism of international adventurism. The modest crowd of mostly respectable gents, who braved the sea of Caps fans to huddle in the bowels of a Chinatown, DC steakhouse, gobbled it up.
But it was boilerplate rhetoric, designed to assuage the sense that he and his eager audience shared with self-righteous resignation: though they’re in retreat, they remain the last bulwark of Western Civilization, a term Tancredo sprinkled liberally throughout his remarks.
Standing up valiantly, unabashedly against “amnesty” and “illegal immigration” is Tancredo’s stock in trade. In front of a fawning, select audience like this, striking a strident note solidifies his standing. Liberated from possible raised eyebrows among re-election handicappers, proving his mettle with an “aw-shucks” boasting that, even though mass deportations aren’t politically viable, “I mean, I’d do it, but…,” secures his status as “in demand” on this niche-market speaking circuit. “I’m an ideologue,” Tancredo proudly proclaimed, after slapping President Obama with the very term.
Less a “meeting of the minds” than a “confluence of comb-overs,” Tancredo graciously granted this blogger a few minutes to mull over his former congressional district, which sits at Ground Zero of the trends that have shoved Colorado from Reliably Republican Red into a Perplexed Purple.
When I brought up Douglas County, the largest county entirely within Colorado’s 6th district, (formerly Tancredo’s) looked at this blogger knowingly, nodded his head and expected, “You know that school I was talking about, that’s Douglas County.” Tancredo (R-Columbine) had delivered a little homily recalling an auditorium full of kids who hooted when he called upon their school pride, but reportedly demurred to their teachers when asked if they were proud of their country. I mistook the Tancredo innuendo as a reference to site of the infamous school shootings, but that school institution sits in next door Jefferson County. (Tancredo gained national attention for striddently defending gun rights even after the horror transpired on his home turf.)
If Tancredo wasn’t talking about the “Trenchcoat Mafia,” he had plenty to say about the “Gay Mafia” – so-dubbed by Time– the coterie of millionaire liberal donors who funded the Colorado Democratic Alliance (CoDA), including the openly gay Denver-based Quark founder Tim Gill and freshman Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO).
Tancredo was animated: “When you have a bunch guys – they’re homosexuals, okay? – that was their issue, but they knew they couldn’t fight the issue of homosexuality” out in the open, so they targeted local level races to elect Democrats, building a political environment receptive to gay rights legislation. “These guys are billionaires, driven by something that’s a very personal issue, something that you’re willing to invest everything in…and they were…strategically brilliant.”
To Tancredo, it was gay millions that overwhelmed Republicans in his district, pushing Obama up 8% and over 20,000 votes over John Kerry’s 2004 vote in Douglas County, and painting Arapahoe and Jefferson counties – both with big chunks in the 6th – red for the first time since LBJ’s ’64 landslide.
But downballot, Obama’s gains didn’t hinder Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman, the Republican who captured the seat that Tancredo abandoned for his quixotic, “Johnny One Note” presidential bid. District-wide, Obama picked up 7% over Kerry’s performance, but Coffman scored just slightly better than Tancredo’s ’04 and ’06 reelections, keeping the seat in the red with nearly 61%.
CoDA’s “ingenious” GOTV and registration efforts harnessed the palpable excitement over Obama’s candidacy among the new voters moving next door to his former constituents and maximized his vote totals. CoDA’s efforts weren’t as insidiously successful as Trancredo insinuated. Not only did Republicans retain his former stomping grounds, Obama’s gains didn’t translate to much turnover in the state legislature, either.
Tancredo may be wary, but “Gay Mafia” or no, Colorado Republicans have some glimmer of hope heading into 2010, when they’re salivating over toppling appointed U.S. Sen. Michael Bennett (D).
