Tancredo Explains Romney Support

Saturday, December 22, 2007 10:16 AMBy: Newsmax Staff

One day after withdrawing from the presidential race, Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo says he gave long and careful thought before endorsing Mitt Romney for the Republican presidential nomination.
Tancredo tells the Fox News Channel program “The Big Story,” that he considered all the remaining candidates with respect to the issues he considers important.
“Are they okay on the border, are they going to secure the border?” “Number two, are they going to go after employers in this country who are creating the magnet for the people who are coming here illegally?
“Number three, how are you on the issue of the war with radical Islam which I believe we are in; I truly believe it’s a clash of civilizations.” Tancredo wants to know if the candidate is committed to perusing that. “And then you add the last one: can you go the distance?”
“Now if you put those things together in that template and lay it across those candidates, there’s one that I think pops out at you and it’s Romney.”
Tancredo says he doesn’t agree with Romney on everything and vice versa. “But the reality is if you look at those candidates and then look at the things I especially care about, and say, which one of these (candidates) can actually carry this message throughout the campaign, I believe it’s Romney, Mitt Romney.”
Tancredo says Romney already has a good record on illegal immigration, noting that while Governor of Massachusetts, he denied driver’s licenses to to illegal aliens and was opposed to their getting in-state tuition. “That was before this issue was an issue, before I could have made it an issue on the national stage, so that’s something that is really in his favor.”
For more than a decade, Tancredo’s banner issue has been illegal immigration. He’s been a staunch opponent of amnesty, open borders and non-enforcement of laws. The Colorado Congressman recently announced he will not run for another term in the House of Representatives, where he has represented the 6th district of Colorado since 1999. He has not ruled out a possible run for the U.S. Senate in the future.