November 10, 2006

Tancredo, King, Danneskjold Back Pence For House GOP Leadership

Things are moving fast in the race for the House GOP leadership. If you haven't been paying attention, John Boehner (current House GOP leader) and Roy Blount (current House GOP whip) are seeking to retain their House leadership positions against Mike Pence and John Shadegg, respectively. According to Captain's Quarters, Pence just picked up the endorsements of immigration hawks Tom Tancredo and Steve King. Apparently, Captain Ed likes him, too:

House Republicans need to demonstrate a commitment to certain principles ahead of policies in order to win the trust back from their constituents. Chief among those should be a commitment to reform and support of limited government. Pence has demonstrated all of those qualities, as well as having a reputation for clean politics. Republicans should strongly consider having Pence lead them during the next two-year period, in which they will be rethinking their direction. Pence seems like the right navigator for that journey.

Pence has been criticized by some over concerns on the immigration, but Dan McLaughlin at RedState opines that Tancredo's endorsement will be likely to silence those critics:

Some people in the tough-on-immigration crowd (you know who you are, both the restrictionists who want to reduce overall immigration and those who merely want to replace illegal with legal immigrants) have been skeptical about Mike Pence for Minority Leader because of Pence's immigration proposals.

Perhaps you should take a second look, because Tom Tancredo, the hardiest of the immigration hard-liners in the House GOP, has endorsed Pence.

Earlier today, I frowned on the idea of seeing Mike Pence move into a leadership position, despite the fact that he's a hard nosed, reform minded, fiscal conservative, because Pence proposed an absolutely horrible amnesty plan last session.

...Since, in my book, Tom Tancredo is the gold standard on illegal immigration, that turns me around 180 degrees. That's because if Tanc is going to support Pence, it means that Pence must have given him some reassurances about how he'd handle illegal immigration. Otherwise, there's no way Tom Tancredo would support him.

So, I am now officially reversing my stance and rooting for Mike Pence to be the new Minority Leader in the House.