From an email Tancredo sent supporters this week:

Alabama’s new immigration law, which passed its legislature this June, is the strongest and strictest immigration law in the nation …
… and for that reason it is being opposed with incredible ferocity by the Hispanic lobby, corrupt business interests and the open-borders Obama Justice Department!

…

The law also forbids transactions between illegal aliens and any division of state government. This is a tremendous step forward in lessening the economic bite that illegals put on state government!

That provision of the law is starting to draw media attention from around the world as some Alabama residents are being told they can no longer have access to public water supplies.

From The International Business Times:

Under section 30 of the law, known as HB56, anyone lacking the proper immigration papers is considered to be committing a crime if they try to enter into a “business transaction” with the “state or a political subdivision of the state.” Although the law doesn’t define what constitutes a business transaction, some parties apparently believe it includes something as basic to life as clean water.

The community of Allgood features a warning notice stating that, “To be complaint with new laws concerning immigration you must have an Alabama driver’s license … or you may lose water service,” according to multiple reports. The note was posted by the Allgood Alabama Water Works; Allgood Mayor Neil Pane hasn’t publicly commented on the issue.

…

Mary Bauer, the legal director of the Southern Poverty Law center, told the newspaper the center’s hotline has received thousands of phone calls since the law was upheld and indicated that multiple municipalities may cut off water service to customers with a questionable immigration status. Families are being forced to go without clean water and even indoor plumbing until the decision is reversed in court, an impact of the law she said is blatantly unconstitutional.

Allison Neal, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, told the IBTimes that in addition to Allgood, the Montgomery Water Works is now requesting social security numbers from individuals before setting up water service to their homes. In addition, she said both the Montgomery and Houston County probate offices have indicated that those requesting water service must meet the citizenship requirements listed in the new law.

How long the Alabama law will stand is anyone’s guess as the United States Justice Department has again filed suit to overturn the law.

From eschoolnews.com:

The federal government asked an appeals court Friday to stop Alabama officials from enforcing a strict immigration law that has already driven Hispanic students from public schools and migrant workers from towns, warning that it opens the door to discrimination against even legal residents.

The Department of Justice’s filing to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also said the law, considered by many to be the most stringent immigration measure in the country, could cause considerable fallout as immigrants flee to other states or their native countries.

Whether the law stands up to repeated legal challenges, the fact is that right now immigrants–legal and illegal–are behaving as if the law is real, and it is being enforced. Immigrants are leaving the state and farmers, builders and others are feeling the strain of a shrinking labor pool.

Tancredo’s entire emaail:

Dear Friend,

Alabama’s new immigration law, which passed its legislature this June, is the strongest and strictest immigration law in the nation …
… and for that reason it is being opposed with incredible ferocity by the Hispanic lobby, corrupt business interests and the open-borders Obama Justice Department!

Here is why the stakes in Alabama are so high for the entire nation.

Alabama’s new immigration law, like Arizona’s, permits local law enforcement personnel to ask for immigration papers during routine traffic stops. That is a positive step to help local law enforcement participate in immigration law enforcement.

But Alabama goes further. Their new law nullifies contracts entered into by illegal aliens, an important step in blocking illegal aliens from “mainstreaming” into everyday life in our communities.

The law also forbids transactions between illegal aliens and any division of state government. This is a tremendous step forward in lessening the economic bite that illegals put on state government!

And here is the provision of the Alabama law that really has the liberal media and the open-borders crowd going crazy …

The law requires public elementary and secondary schools to determine the immigration status of incoming students.

Why? The state wants to determine how much money it is spending to educate illegal aliens, which is absolutely reasonable.

This process will lay the groundwork for a wholesale reevaluation of “citizenship” rights being extended to children of illegal aliens … and that is why everyone from La Raza (the Ku Klux Klan without sheets and ropes), LULAC, the Obama administration and, of course, the profits-above-patriotism elements of the business lobby have reacted so violently to this particular provision of Alabama’s new law!

While a federal judge upheld nearly all the key provisions of the law (including determining the immigration status of students) last month, the politicized Obama Justice Department has vowed to continue its legal challenges to the Alabama law.

If this law is upheld, my friend, it sets up a probable collision in the U.S. Supreme Court, which could lead directly to finally overturning the policy that requires all 50 states to give free public education to illegal aliens … a policy that was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1981 because no “substantial state interest” was shown by Texas when that state tried to deny free public education to illegal aliens.

When Alabama shows how much money its already-strapped taxpayers are spending to educate illegal aliens, the outcome at the Supreme Court could be reversed!

That’s why it’s important for you and me and Team America to get behind this great legislation! We need to let the Governor and his allies know we stand with them!

I am asking you for a generous gift to Team America today so that we can buy radio air time in Alabama in support of the state’s new immigration law. Right now it is vital that average citizens in Alabama, and their elected leaders, need to know that the entire nation is relying on them to hang tough, stick by their guns and stand behind their new immigration law!

Your support of Team America helped us lead the fight against the massive Bush-Kennedy-McCain amnesty bill back in 2007. Your support helped us elect some tremendous secure-the-border-first immigration reformers to Congress and to governorships across the country last year.

Now, we need to support Alabama’s new immigration law!

Your best contribution is needed to give Team America the resources we need to air our pro-immigration law message on the radio in Alabama in the weeks ahead, so your response is critically important to us!

Despite the best efforts of the Obama administration and the open-borders lobby, law-abiding citizens in states like Alabama are committed to taking their state … and our nation … back. It is so important for us to do all we can to help them!

Thank you, as always, for your commitment to our cause.

Your Friend,

Tom Tancredo

Is racism part of the equation?

“The immigration debate has been influenced by bigotry and fueled by nativist extremists such as former Congressman Tom Tancredo and State Senator Russell Pearce of Arizona who sponsored a law that violates the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution,” says DeeDee Garcia Blase, executive director of Somos Republicans.

The question of racism was raised recently by right-wing columnist Dennis Prager, writing in National Review.

Prager, predictably, says it is practicality–not racism–that is driving the discussion, but his column has drawn rebuttal from some. That he writes in a somewhat paternal tone may not help his cause.

Prager writes:

All it takes is common sense to understand that we simply cannot afford to take care of all of you in our medical, educational, penal, and other institutions. However much you may pay in sales tax, most illegal immigrants are a financial and social burden in those states in which most of them settle.

Yes, many of you are also a blessing. Many of you take care of our children and our homes. Others of you prepare our food and do other work that is essential to our society. We know that. As individuals, the great majority of you are hardworking, responsible, decent people.

But none of that answers the question: How many people can this country allow to come in?

The moment you answer that question is the moment you realize that Americans’ worries about illegal immigration have nothing to do with “racism” or any negative feeling toward Hispanics.

Those who tell you it is racism or xenophobia are lying about their fellow Americans for political or ideological reasons. You know from your daily interactions with Americans that the vast majority of us treat you with the dignity that every fellow human being deserves. Your daily lives are the most eloquent refutation of the charge of racism and bigotry. The charge is a terrible lie. Please don’t believe it. You know it is not true.

Daniel Cubias, writing at Being Latino Online, is having none of it, or not much of it in any event.

Cubias writes:

Now, I’m sure Prager is sincere. But he is giving his fellow conservatives way too much credit.

No doubt, plenty of Republicans have legitimate objections to illegal immigration that have nothing to do with race. But to say, as Prager does, that “the vast majority of us could not care less if your name is Gonzalez or Jones” is to deny reality.

It was not liberals who ran commercials depicting Latinos as menacing thugs, or made jokes about shooting undocumented people like vermin, or called Latinos “locusts,” or… well, you get the picture. The point is that conservatives did all that (and more) by themselves, unprompted.

Still, this is anecdotal evidence. Do we have anything a bit more concrete that ties racism to the immigration debate?

Well, Mother Jones recently reported that a majority of our favorite group, the Tea Party, believes “that newcomers from other countries threaten traditional American customs and values.” Furthermore, a whopping 72 percent think we “should deport all illegal immigrants back to their home countries,” despite the fact that this would probably lead to economic chaos.

Another study showed that “racial resentment” was second only to “conservative ideology” when it came to the motivations of Tea Party members. And yet Prager would have us believe that their views on immigration are not influenced by even a hint of bigotry.

Let’s give credit to Prager for a couple of things, however. His attempt to speak directly to Latinos is rare for a conservative. More often, they’re busy riling up their base by speaking about Latinos. And his column is free of vitriol and even makes an attempt (however awkward) to see things from the perspective of an undocumented person.

But ultimately, Prager’s column appears to be a conservative’s uncomfortable epiphany. He knows that the disappointment many Latinos feel for the Democrats is no match for the hostility they harbor for the GOP. Prager is trying to undo the damage, stating that the allegation of rampant bigotry in the GOP “is a terrible lie. Please don’t believe it. You know it is not true.”

This shameless, rather pathetic pleading is what the conservative approach to Latinos and immigration has been reduced to. Rather than attempting to clean up the racism that infects their movement, conservatives are now trying to insist that this prejudice doesn’t exist at all.

I’m sorry if I don’t quite buy it.

Garcia Blase says racism is practically institutionalized in so far as much of the information used by the GOP in justifying harsh immigration laws and rhetoric comes from what she believes to be racist organizations.

“Powerful groups like NumbersUSA and the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) are part of a strong lobbying anti-immigration ‘movement,’ where NumbersUSA has at least 600,000 due paying members,” she says.

FAIR was founded by John Tanton, a man known for his support of eugenics research. In fact, FAIR has received major funding from the Pioneer Fund, which is dedicated to racial purity through eugenics.

Garcia Blase is a fairly staunch Republican on most issues, finding fault primarily in the party’s position on immigration and immigrant rights.

“We have warned all GOP candidates that the anti-immigrant messaging must be dominated with a principle they claim to value — free market thinking. Most GOP candidates excluding Gary Johnson are afraid to truthfully debate the benefits with regard to how immigrants have contributed to American society,” Garcia Blase said. “We believe GOP candidates are afraid of the Tea Party extremists, and they simply lack the spine Ronald Reagan had when he was confronted with tough issues. It is unfortunate that Rick Perry allowed Mitt Romney to put him in a defensive corner because Romney is repeating his anti-immigrant history when he ran against John McCain in 2008. Romney’s hostility towards immigrants in wanting to send them all back is clearly unreasonable and if Romney secures the GOP nomination, Latin Republican support will continue to dwindle. The GOP will not secure a healthy Latin vote during the Presidential 2012 elections due to the hostility and the extreme rhetoric the Republican National Committee (RNC) has failed to moderate.

“It is unfortunate the Republican Party has been hijacked by Tea Party extremists,” she says.

So it is that newly minted candidate Rick Perry finds himself under attack from both sides on the immigration debate. So far, though, Perry is doing well in Colorado.

Colorado College professor Bob Loevy said Perry’s problem with immigration offers an object lesson on how not to run an election. He says the current system gives too much power to fringe activists in small states and that the country would get better candidates if it went to a national primary.

Until then, though, Perry is sure to be dogged daily about immigration.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Immigration advocates in Texas were heartened last year when the Republican governor, Rick Perry, flatly stated that Arizona’s crackdown on illegal immigrants “would not be the right direction for Texas.”

But in June, Perry convened a special session of the Legislature, hoping to pass a measure outlawing sanctuary cities — places where police are not allowed to ask people they detain about immigration status.

The law, which had already failed during the Legislature’s regular session, was defeated a second time thanks to an opposition coalition that included immigration activists as well as law enforcement officials, evangelical pastors and Republican business owners, among them one of Perry’s biggest fundraisers.

Why did the governor push the ban in a state where no official sanctuary cities even exist? Many in Texas, including Perry supporters, thought they knew the answer: He was considering a run for the Republican presidential nomination.

“I suspect it came from his advisers,” said Houston insurance broker Norman Adams, a Republican and Perry supporter who fought hard against the bill, which he considered anti-business. “You know, ‘You need to look tough on immigration, so we want a sanctuary bill.’ “

And, from The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza:

On immigration, Perry is far to the left of most Republicans (as is Texas as a whole given its large population of Latinos). Vocal anti-immigration advocate Tom Tancredo wrote an op-ed for Politico last weekend attacking Perry on the issue. The headline: “Perry: Not a true conservative.”

Loevy has seen it all before. He says the biggest threat to the Republican Party today is the party itself.

“Each candidate tries to get further to the right to get the support of the party activists whose support they need to get the nomination. But then you end up with a nominee that is so far to the right that they can’t get elected,” said Loevy, who chairs the political science department at CC and has written numerous books on politics and the nominating process, which he views as deeply flawed.

Loevy said that in general, Democrats have the same problem of playing to the far left base during the nominating process before having to move toward the middle for the general election. He notes, though, that in Colorado the Democrats have done a better job lately of nominating candidates with broad appeal.

“Democrats in Colorado have done a pretty good job lately of nominating candidates from the middle of the road instead of from the far left,” Loevy said.

He said Perry’s problems with immigration remind him of the problems Mitt Romney had in 2008. “Romney had a somewhat liberal reputation as the governor of a very liberal state (Massachusetts). Then, as he began running for president he began taking hard right positions that people had a hard time believing.”

Loevy advocates for a national primary, with all states voting on the same day and with the top two vote getters from each party facing a run-off, much the way Denver and Colorado Springs elect mayors.

By doing that, Loevy said small states that hold early primaries would lose their ability to swing the nomination to a candidate that can’t play to the middle. Both parties would become more centrist. “You wouldn’t have all this power concentrated in small states that don’t represent the general public,” he said.

While immigration may be sticking point for some voters, Perry could get some Colorado votes simply for having called former Rep. Tom Tancredo a racist back when Tancredo ran for president himself in 2008.

Tancredo hasn’t forgotten and this week penned an opinion piece for Politico saying he is no fan of Rick Perry.

From Tancredo’s column:

Perry is eager to separate himself from his predecessor in the Texas governor’s mansion, George W. Bush — who is unpopular with both tea party Republicans and the American electorate as a whole. But one area where Perry’s positions are virtually identical to Bush is immigration.

When I ran for president in 2008, I tried to pressure the Republican candidates to take a hard line against illegal immigration. For this, Perry called me a racist.

When he first took office as governor in 2001, Perry went to Mexico and bragged about his law that granted “the children of undocumented workers” special in-state tuition at Texas colleges, the first state in the nation to do so.

“The message is simple,” Perry concluded, “educacion es el futuro, y si se puede.” Education is the future, and (echoing Cesar Chavez’s slogan) yes we can.]

Just a few weeks ago, Perry defended his decision to give in-state tuition to illegal immigrants. He said “to punish these young Texans for their parents’ actions is not what America has always been about.”

Perry opposed Arizona’s tough anti-illegal immigration law SB 1070. “I have concerns,” he explained, “with portions of the law passed in Arizona and believe it would not be the right direction for Texas.”

On top of that, Perry is fond of touting the recent economic success of Texas, but at least one report says a big part of that success is due to the contributions of illegal immigrants who provide a net benefit to the state even after the cost of education, health care and other services are taken into consideration.

From The Associated Press:

For all of his rock-solid conservative credentials, Texas Gov. Rick Perry may have an Achilles’ heel: immigration.

Perry will undoubtedly focus his presidential campaign on Texas’ relatively healthy economy and its low taxes and his record in creating jobs in the 11 years he’s been governor. What he may have to explain on the stump is how illegal immigrants have contributed to that success, adding as much as $17.7 billion a year to the state gross product and enjoying such benefits as in-state tuition at public universities.

“Gov. Perry is very eager to appear tough on illegal immigration, but upon closer inspection he’s part of the problem,” complained William Gheen, who runs the North Carolina-based political action committee Americans for Legal Immigration. The group intends to educate conservative groups about candidates’ positions on that issue.

Tea party criticism about Perry’s immigration record is now appearing on activist blogs in Arizona and New Hampshire.

A 2006 state report said that the state’s illegal immigrants — 1.4 million then, 1.65 million now — added $17.7 billion to the gross state product, and that the state came out ahead on taxes it collected versus services it provided. But local governments and county hospitals were shouldering the burden of caring for that population.

Perry, who continues to mull a presidential bid, joins GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain, as well as a handful of Fox News contributors like Juan Williams, Dick Morris, The Daily Caller’s Tucker Carlson and former UN ambassador John Bolton. The event begins July 29 and includes workshops, network opportunities and explores questions like “Can Republicans and the Tea Party work together?” and “Is conservatism more than politics and economics?”

The Post notes that at last year’s summit, which U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann headlined, participants were asked to sign a declaration affirming “six tenets of who we are and what we stand for.” Those tenets include a call to protect an “open public square centered on the nation’s Judeo-Christian core” and the rejection and resistance of the “socialist temptation, transnational progressivism, secular utopian illusions, appeasement, disarmament, or capitulation to jihad and sharia.”

The Centennial Institute, co-hosts of the summit, invited Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition and a key figure in the Jack Abramoff Indian casino lobbying scandal, to speak about faith and politics during a fall seminar in 2010.

Last year the Post quoted former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo’s remarks at the event, warning against diversity and the “cult of multiculturalism” that plagues the nation. “We are the last hope of Western civilization — this country,” Tancredo said. “Europe has been Islamicized.”

Perry landed in Colorado last month to speak at an invitation-only event hosted by billionaires and leading Tea Party financiers Charles and David Koch, the Post reported in June. The secretive GOP summit was said to focus around free-market policy. The Colorado Independent earlier reported that environmental and progressive organizations protested the event, which they said highlighted business interests’ influence in politics.

Dickson writes:

It’s not so much a song as it is an extended improvisation during the interminable “Get Back” studio sessions in 1969 (in fact, some theorize that “The Commonwealth Song” is a prototype for “Get Back”). “Commonwealth” name-checks Enoch Powell (the Tom Tancredo of his day, or Thilo Sarazin, if you prefer a German reference), who had delivered his anti-immigrant “Rivers of Blood” speech the previous year. “Commonwealth” was Paul McCartney’s mocking response.

Here, a link to the lyrics, which include:

Immigrants. Wilson Health said to the immigrants
you better get back to the commonwealth homes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah I said Get back home. Now Enoch
Powell was said to the folks color of his skin. He
said don’t care. So he said you better get up. He
said he said to Enoch Powell. You better go home.

“Obama has followed Mohammed, not the religious leader, but the boxer. President Obama has pulled off the perfect Mohammed Ali rope-a-dope,” Tancredo said in a release Friday underlining his alleged prescience on the birther conspiracy as a way to pitch his own radio show.

The release includes this exchange between Tancredo and Colmes last April:

TANCREDO: Now they very well may not want to show it because they want to propagate this whole thing that’s going on about birthers. … They may be doing it for that reason; I don’t know why they don’t want anyone to see it. … They want it propagated because you know –

COLMES: It makes your party look nuts!

TANCREDO: Yeah well maybe that’s why they don’t produce the document.

The president brought out his “long-form” birth certificate Wednesday, he said, to try to dampen discussion in the media about his citizenship, which has been called into question since before he was elected to office and which has generated a cottage industry on the right.

Conservative radio and blogs have hummed with the conspiracy for years. Believers bought billboard ads in cities around the nation demanding to know “Where’s the birth certificate?” Many birthers believe Obama was born in Kenya and that he has paid millions of dollars in a birth-certificate related cover up.

Mainstream Republican leaders have traded on the conspiracy to win favor with far-right voters.

Lat year, Colorado GOP Rep. Cory Gardner in his race to unseat Democrat Betsy Markey gave a typically equivocal response on the stump to a question from the crowd about Obama’s citizenship.

“Do you know for a fact if Barack Obama was born in the United States?” asked an audience member.

“Based on what they’ve shown, what they’ve tried to say, I think the administration is trying to say he was born in this country. I know what everybody else knows.”

Later, a Gardner spokesman told reporters that Gardner believes Obama is “most likely” a citizen.

Tancredo feels Obama the whole time was undertaking shrewd political strategery.

“Tancredo feels this has been nothing more than political covert operations,” said the release.

Got a tip? Story pitch? Send us an e-mail. Follow The Colorado Independent on Twitter.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee “would be the definitive favorite had he been more aggressive about this process, and thus not allowed candidates like [U.S. Rep.] Michele Bachmann to gain some traction, and lost the support of key evangelicals like Danny Carroll and Kent Sorenson.” In addition, now that it seems somewhat more likely that Huckabee will officially enter the 2012 contest, one of our panelists believe the advantage is handed to more establishment candidates like former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, “because it will further balkanize the more grassroots-favored candidates.”

Such perspectives have been culled from our staff members, additional state political reporters, party activists, academics, elected officials, political consultants and other insiders to create these rankings. While unscientific, the ranks provide insights that cannot be garnered in traditional polling or from any one pundit as to a candidate’s organizational strength in the Hawkeye State.

All those invited to participate are asked to answer one question: “If the Iowa caucus was held tonight, what would be the results?”

The rankings below provide a snapshot in time based on educated guesses and “gut instincts.” Campaigns were evaluated based on personal perceptions and input from others as to the quality of shoe-leather activity, ability to motivate possible caucus attendees and second-choice support. Panelists aren’t provided a specific ballot of potential candidates, and are free to choose from any Republican candidate — rumored or actual.

With all of that in mind, if the caucus was held tonight, this is how we think it would end.

1. Mike Huckabee — The victor of the 2008 GOP Iowa caucuses returns to the top of our rankings for this edition, but only barely. Some of our panelists who had wiped him from their last rankings on a firm belief that he wouldn’t be running — and one panelists who had never listed him for the ranking series on a belief he wasn’t running — suddenly had to reconsider the pastor and why he continues to have so much of a draw with Iowa caucus-goers.

   Huckabee “has a name that people recognize,” said one panelist, while another noted that when you discuss Huckabee “what you see is what you get.” Although still viewed as wishy-washy when it comes to the 2012 contests, most of our panelists view Huckabee as both charismatic and consistent — two qualities seen as sorely lacking in the rest of the potential GOP field.

   “He should have the same support in Iowa, because he’s the same likable person, bringing the same message.”

   What seems to keep Huckabee from totally dominating our Power Rankings week after week is his own apparent hesitation when it comes to 2012, which has subsequently lended itself to many of Huckabee’s key Iowa staff members signing with other candidates. Now that those staffers have gone elsewhere, “he needs to act fast as the activists aren’t going to wait around forever.”

2. Michele Bachmann — Ten of our panelists use some variant of Bachmann “saying all the right things” to describe their justification for placing the Minnesota Republican near the top of their caucus night predictions.

   “In a lot of ways she is like the Sarah Palin of 2012 — coming out of seemingly nowhere and making a big splash, mostly due to her campaign rhetoric. The question is if she can hang on to the momentum or if she has already peaked.”

   Much of what happens to Bachmann in 2012 will not be self-determined, according to our panelists, but will hinge on Huckabee. If he stays away from the race, her fortunes could swell. If he gets into the race, our panelists don’t see this duo as garnering enough support between them to rank first and second on caucus night.

   “Think of Huckabee-Bachmann in Iowa 2012 like Huckabee-Fred Thompson South Carolina 2008. She drains just enough support from Huckabee to deny him the victory.

3. Tim Pawlenty — While many of our panelists spoke of candidate inconsistencies, or the feeling that several are trying to remake themselves publicly as we head into 2012, such feelings were most prevalent as panelists discussed former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

   Even while noting two more key Iowa staff pick-ups for Pawlenty — Tracie Gibler and Dane Nealson — and highly effective organizing around the Ames area (home of the Straw Poll) one our panelists notes that it is getting more difficult to look the other way as Pawlenty tries on different hats.

   “Pawlenty gets a plus for showing up at the Des Moines tea party rally in some bad weather. I was willing to given him a pass a couple of weeks ago for channeling Charlie Sheen when talking to the Iowa Federation of College Republicans convention, but he channeled both the “rent is too damn high” guy and Donald Trump (You’re fired.) at the tea party event. Some people can get away with that stuff. I’m not sure Pawlenty is one of them.”

   Most of our panelists agree, however, that the media perception of him being less fiery and uninspiring combined with his low national name recognition is playing a role in this seemingly never-ended persona revamping.

   “[Pawlenty is] still hanging around. Still not exciting.”

   But while acknowledging why Pawlenty is struggling, our Iowa panelists aren’t willing to shrug it off. Most don’t understand why Pawlenty isn’t willing to grab and hold the potential “moderate middle” that seems his natural base.

   Just like Barack Obama during 2008, “Pawlenty will be able to mobilize many volunteers” from Iowa’s neighbor state. “Key places in north Iowa have already been seeing his ads for years.”

   Another panelist notes that he could be “the ‘conservative next door,’ the trustworthy Boy Scout in the race” and that such a strategy “may make a lot of sense when all the dust settles and the moderates are looking for a place to go.”

4. Mitt Romney and Donald Trump — Former Massachusetts Gov. Romney and real estate mogul turned reality television sensation Trump are currently in a dead heat, according to our panelists.

   Romney returns to the rankings for the first time since our first edition in mid-March, largely due to recent polling that shows he continues to be favored by Republicans despite the fact that he hasn’t had much of a presence in the state for 2012.

   “There is obvious loyalty and name recognition that lingers for Romney among Iowans — and I also think that many view him as the one candidate who could effectively run a campaign against Obama’s national machine in 2012. So, as much as Iowa social conservatives would like to put an ideologist out there for the nation, they want to win back the White House even more.”

   Romney’s Achilles’ heel, say our panelists, is the fact that he pushed for a won health care reform in Massachusetts — something that was viewed as a mostly positive talking point for him during 2008.

   “Romney’s solid video announcing his Presidential Exploratory Committee made a good impression on a lot of folks. Romney still has a lot of explaining to do about ‘Romneycare’ and he needs to reassure conservative voters about some of his positions, but the opening is there for him to make some progress. He may not put as much emphasis on Iowa this time around, but he may still do well if the social conservatives are split among several other candidates.”

   “I was surprised by this week’s results of Public Policy Polling, in that between moderates Romney and Pawlenty, voters were more interested in Romney, even though he hasn’t visited the state much this year, and despite Pawlenty’s presence in Iowa he hasn’t made much impact … I will caveat this selection with the fact that once Romney’s name gets tied to Romneycare, as it likely will, I expect he’ll fall in the rankings. That said, the question is if the caucuses were held today, so he makes my list.”

   The same polling that elevated Romney seemed to diminish an Iowa standing for Trump and, in many ways, our rankings show similar results. There was not an overwhelming majority of our panelists who placed Trump in their top five, but those who did overwhelmingly ranked him high — a situation that could be an indicator that Trump is viewed as a viable second-choice by Iowa caucus-goers.

   “We laugh right now [at the thought of Trump becoming president], but a lot of us laughed when Arnold Schwarzenegger ran in California. What Trump is saying right now in the news appeals to both the hard right and the fiscal right.”

   “Despite the slings and arrows of the terrified Republican establishment, the Donald has now surged to or toward the top of most polls. The more the establishment attacks him, the better he looks. Americans are sick of slick and Trump is the beneficiary d’jour of that revulsion. Republicans will turn out in big numbers at an upcoming Republican dinner. This turnout will be the first test of Trump’s appeal to the activist base.”

5. Newt Gingrich — What keeps Gingrich in the Power Rankings week after week isn’t a surge of high-placement by a handful of panelists, but a steady flow of mostly fourth and fifth place predictions from a very diverse group that isn’t convinced Gingrich can claim support among social conservatives so focused on marriage.

   “Gingrich seems very serious about being a candidate, particularly given that he recently hired some Iowa folks for his team. He has the name recognition and gravitas to be a favorite among Republicans. The big question mark with him will be how his political and personal baggage will play. The personal issues will bother some Republicans and both will be used as points of attack by Democrats. The question will be whether Republicans will see him as too vulnerable to such attacks.”

This edition of Power Rankings also so the most mentions ever of Sarah Palin, mostly due to her appearance in Wisconsin. “Sarah again followed up a great week with a low-profile week. This follows a strange pattern in which the biggest Republican celebrity since RR (Ronald Reagan) appears ready to sweep the nomination field with long periods of little apparent activity. But the public is still talking about her appearance before the hostile crowd in Madison and this keeps her in third place.”

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas also continues to have his following among our panelists, but not enough for this edition to keep him in the top five. “I’m sticking by my prediction that there remains a libertarian bent to some GOP activists in Iowa and I can see Paul galvanize them.”

Former Godfather’s Pizza chief executive and radio talk show host Herman Cain also received more widespread support from our panelists than he ever has previously, but it wasn’t enough to pull him into our top five. “Cain has a small but devoted and hard-working grassroots organization, and might be the most dynamic speaker of the bunch. I don’t think he can win, but he can certainly play spoiler and play a role. He will be heavily courted for his endorsement (and to drop out) down the stretch like Tom Tancredo was in 2008.”

Others that received only passing mentions by our panelists were:

• Ambassador Jon Huntsman — “Huntsman doesn’t stand a chance. He’s too close to the Obama administration.”
• Former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore — “He could potentially make a bigger impact if Huckabee weren’t in the race, but the network of pastors across the state he needs to do that is still pretty loyal to Huckabee and/or impressed with Bachmann from what I understand.”
• Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour — “Seems to have fallen off the face of the earth,” and “if anyone sees him they should signal with a flare.” Another panelist joked that Barbour was obviously hanging out with former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and “arguing over what cabinet position they’d like to hold.”

The Federation for American Immigration Reform was in Arizona when that state wrote its famous senate bill to crack down on immigration. They were in the Colorado Capitol last November when the Republican Study Committee of Colorado hosted a forum on immigration reform.

At that time, Republicans in the Colorado Legislature told The Colorado Independent they planned to pursue Arizona-style legislation in Colorado, a position they backed down from over the next couple of months as it became clear that Arizona had paid a hefty price for its own legislation.

When FAIR came to Colorado, The Independent reported on
FAIR’s ties to Tanton and on Tanton’s ties to racist organizations as well as on his propensity for racially tinged statements.

Sunday, The New York Times published a major cover-story profile of Tanton, noting his liberal roots–as a supporter of Planned Parenthood and the Sierra Club–and chronicling his steady movement toward white nationalist sympathies. including his ties to the Ku Klux Klan, holocaust deniers and those who claim white people are genetically superior to other races.

Tanton was concerned all along as he established his network of anti-immigration organizations that the groups and its supporters could be perceived as racist if they weren’t careful. In the end, a FAIR executive told The Times, it was Tanton himself who brought such infamy to the cause.

From The Times:

“The fear was that one ugly person could tar the larger movement, and sadly, ironically, it turned out that person was John Tanton,” said Patrick Burns, who was then FAIR’s deputy director.

But if anything, Dr. Tanton grew more emboldened to challenge taboos. He increasingly made his case against immigration in racial terms.

“One of my prime concerns,” he wrote to a large donor, “is about the decline of folks who look like you and me.” He warned a friend that “for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that.”

Dr. Tanton acknowledged the shift from his earlier, colorblind arguments, but the “uncomfortable truth,” he wrote, was that those arguments had failed. With a million or more immigrants coming each year — perhaps a third illegally — he warned, “The end may be nearer than we think.”

Angle posed a serious threat to Reid, in spite of — or perhaps because of — rhetoric and advertising on immigration that frequently crossed the line into offensive territory, according to Latino groups. Angle claimed Reid supported a number of policies to help illegal immigrants and seemed to be attempting to capitalize on ethnic fears in ads that showed angry-looking Latino men set to dramatic, if untrue, statements.

Tancredo also campaigned largely on immigration policy, accusing his Democratic opponent John Hickenlooper of supporting “sanctuary city” policies that allowed illegal immigrants to stay in the country and threaten American lives. Hickenlooper won the election.

Immigrant rights advocates will also be pleased about the California governor race, where Republican Meg Whitman lost to Democrat Jerry Brown. Whitman shifted to the right during her Republican primary and received support from former Gov. Pete Wilson, the controversial figure behind California’s now-overturned Proposition 187 to exclude undocumented immigrants from state services. Whitman tried to reach out to Latino voters after her primary, but was hindered by allegations of mistreatment and illegal employment by an undocumented maid who worked for her for almost a decade.

Anti-illegal immigration governors won in a few other states, though. New Mexico’s Susana Martinez (R) emerged victorious, as did Georgia’s Nathan Deal (R) and South Carolina’s Nikki Haley (R). All three support harsher laws on immigration in their states.