Posts on John Tanton

Sen. Sam Brownback got the ball rolling last week when he started running “robocalls” in Iowa questioning the pro-life credentials of Rep. Tom Tancredo and Gov. Mitt Romney.  Tancredo was especially outraged that Brownback was targeting his campaign for accepting money from population-control zealot John Tanton, whose views the Brownback campaign characterized as “racist:”

"Conservatives and liberals alike have abandoned Tanton once they learn about his bizarre obsession with population control.”

The Eagle Forum’s Phyllis Schlafly has now come to Tancredo’s defense and has recorded her own calls targeting Iowa voters:  

"I want to go on record as saying I've known Tom Tancredo for 30 years and I know for sure he has always been a champion of the right to life of the unborn.” 

Both Tancredo and Romney have called on Brownback to apologize and pull the calls, which he refuses to do. 

For his part, Tancredo has not been content merely to defend himself and his own record. He had unleashed his own ads attacking most of his opponents – ads which are themselves drawing complaints from other candidates:

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee on Thursday called on rival Tom Tancredo to stop airing a "blatantly dishonest" campaign ad in Iowa that accuses Huckabee of favoring amnesty for illegal immigrants.

Huckabee said Tancredo either did sloppy research or deliberately mischaracterized Huckabee's position.

"When people engage in a completely false attack, it's usually an act of desperation. To me, it's a badge of honor because he sees that we are reaching the people we are trying to reach," Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, told The Associated Press.

Tancredo campaign spokeswoman Bay Buchanan said the ad would not be pulled and insisted it was accurate. She said Huckabee supported a plan by Bush that would have allowed illegal immigrants to earn the right to stay in the United States, and that Huckabee refused to sign a pledge opposing amnesty.

"All indications are that Huckabee supports amnesty. He's a pro-amnesty politician who is in denial. There are a lot of pro-amnesty politicians in denial," she said.

The radio ad calls Mitt Romney a flip-flopper on abortion, amnesty and gun control, then attacks Sam Brownback, Fred Thompson and Huckabee, claiming "they're all for amnesty."

While two of the front-running Republican presidential candidates, Giuliani and McCain, have withdrawn from the Ames, Iowa straw poll, and with Fred Thompson yet to announce his candidacy, the results of the August 11 survey won’t carry too much weight. Even Mitt Romney, who is still in the race, is scaling back his ambitions, hoping he doesn’t embarrass himself with a poor showing against the remaining, less viable candidates: “[W]e're not trying to overwhelm anybody,” he said.

But for those second-tier candidates, Ames is a chance to shine. That’s why it’s no surprise to see Brownback, whose campaign strategy seems to depend on showing strongly in Iowa, coming out aggressively against Romney. In an attack reminiscent of their early jockeying for religious-right favor, Brownback is accusing Romney of being a newcomer to anti-gay politics. In a press release from Brownback’s campaign:

Earlier this month, Sam Brownback attacked Tom Tancredo, questioning his pro-life committment due to the latter's ties to John Tanton. Tancredo says the phones calls being made by the Brownback campaign are "despicable," but the Brownback campaign blasted back at "Tanton's bizarre obsession with population control," saying Tancredo's ties to him "are an embarrassment to his campaign." Update: Romeny is demanding an apology for calls targeting him as well.

Article profiles Numbers USA, which claims membership of 447,000, compared to 50,000 in 2004.

A strong showing in the Iowa Republican caucus is key to Sam Brownback’s long-shot campaign for president, and he’s certainly spent a lot of time building support among state-level religious-right activists, even touring with celebrity “Christian nation” proponent David Barton. Today, the Kansas senator announced the formation of a Faith and Family Leadership Committee, corralling endorsements of 50 Iowa-based activists. “I don't want to overstate it, but some of these are pretty well known in their circles of faith leaders,” boasted Chuck Hurley, head of the Iowa Family Policy Center, who chairs Brownback’s new committee.

While the list is certainly overshadowed by Mitt Romney’s own list of 50 names – headlined by national star activists – that he announced last month, Brownback’s concentration in Iowa suggests he is hoping to duplicate televangelist Pat Robertson’s surprise second-place showing in Iowa in 1988. In fact, as conservative columnist George Will wrote back in 2005, Brownback’s plan all along has been to ride on the network of activists built by Robertson.

Still, if Brownback wants to be perceived as a real contender, he could do better than to attack his fellow long-shot candidates: Last week he lashed out at Tom Tancredo – who is running only to promote his anti-immigrant politics – for accepting contributions from someone involved with Planned Parenthood. (Of course – as Tancredo alludes to – that contributor, John Tanton, is the nation’s leading funder and founder of anti-immigrant and English-only groups.)