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Tancredo's Explosive Campaign Ad

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November 12, 2007 3:40 PM

ABC News' Z. Byron Wolf Reports: The struggling presidential campaign of Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colorado, has produced a startling new television ad in which an actor portrays a terrorist exploding a bomb in a crowded American shopping mall.

Tancredo has built his presidential campaign around his opposition to illegal immigration and amnesty for undocumented workers and in the new ad, a voiceover tells the viewer there are "Consequences to open borders beyond the 20 million aliens who have come to take our jobs. Islamic terrorists now freely roam U.S. soil -- Jihadists who froth with hate here to do as they have in London, Spain, Russia."

Interspersed with images from these terror attacks, the actor, whose features are not distinguishable behind a green hooded sweatshirt, loads a bomb into a backpack and walks into a suburban-looking shopping mall. He leaves the backpack by a bench in the mall and walks off.

"The price we pay for spineless politicians who refuse to defend our borders against those who come to kill," intones the narrator.

Then there is an explosion.

The screen cuts to black and white lettering appears: "Tancredo. Before its too late."

The ad begins with Tancredo saying he approved the message "because someone needs to say it," which has become the new unofficial motto of his campaign.

Scary political ads are nothing new. They all owe something to the 1964 "Daisy" ad for President Lyndon Baines Johnson. In that ad, a little girl is playing with a flower before an ominous coundown and a nuclear explosion. Then, as the mushroom cloud plumes, Johnson's voice can be heard saying "These are the stakes. To make a world in which all of god's children can live or to go into the dark. We must either love each other or we must die."

Of course, the Daisy ad caused such an uproar that it only aired once, in September of 1964. Take a look at it here.

Tancredo's ad, on the other hand, will air repeatedly in Iowa and New Hampshire on network affiliates and nationally on cable, according to a campaign spokesman. He did not have specific numbers for the ad buy, but said the ad will run through the Iowa caucuses and the campaign plans to spend "well over a million dollars" running it.

Tancredo has not received much support in polls lately with only single digit support and his fundraising fell off in the most recent fundraising quarter. He raised just under $800,000 in the third quarter of 2007, down from nearly $1.5 million in the second quarter. He reported only just over $100,000 cash on hand at the end of the third quarter.

He did best as a fundraiser when Congress was debating an ultimately failed plan to comprehensively overhaul immigration policy.  Tancredo has applied for public financing for his campaign.

In a recent radio ad, Tancredo said, "Some call me a single issue candidate, and that's fine, so long as you know my single issue is the survival of the America we have been so blessed to inherit."

November 12, 2007 in Thompson, Fred | Permalink | User Comments (16)

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I really wish Tancredo and Hunter would team up, with one of them running as the others potential VP.

Posted by: jon baker | Nov 12, 2007 5:44:45 PM

Wow, fear mongering from a Republican candidate? Who would have thought?

Posted by: Tom G | Nov 12, 2007 5:52:50 PM

Tancredo is definitely a fear-mongering bigot who perhaps gets financial support mostly from the corrupt gun-toting Minuteman.

Posted by: swissdiver | Nov 12, 2007 9:18:52 PM

Best ad out there so far....Thank god for Trancedo and the Minutemen...

Posted by: Joe Murphy | Nov 13, 2007 2:41:00 AM

At least he's advertising that you all should be cowards that cringe behind a "fearless leader".

Posted by: able | Nov 13, 2007 4:04:47 AM

I don't agree with anything else he says but I'm with him on this one. Take the money we waste fighting a useless war and use it to remove illegals and lock down the border. Givem hell Tom!!!

Posted by: dk | Nov 13, 2007 6:39:22 AM

I feel the SAME way, "dk"!

Posted by: mod rit | Nov 13, 2007 8:30:25 AM

The Al-Qaeda bomber, Ahmed Ressam, was arrested crossing the Canadian border in 1999, not the Mexican border. If the fear was truly terrorism we would be building two walls, one on the southern border and one on the northern.

Posted by: BenMurphyNYC | Nov 13, 2007 11:18:12 AM

If we actually used the national guard here in the home-front instead of fighting a civil war between religious zealot maniacs in a far away desert maybe we could get control of our borders, top and bottom, and start to make some sense out of this immigration nightmare.
As far as the middle east is concerned if there wasn't oil there these people haven't got another worthwhile thing to contribute to society as a whole. Their religion? Who cares,except them. Isn't that what they are fighting over,some special nuances of muslim dogma? How tight the burka is worn or how much skin shows,something weird like that? Completely absurd.They don't produce any thing that I'm aware of.The way I see it, if the oil came from a "magic spigot" somewhere and none of these theologically insane countries even existed nobody would notice or care they were gone.Except for the oil they don't matter even a little bit. They produce nothing,period,nothing. If we actually manage to find a real alternative to their oil and stop using it ,they would just melt back into the desert just like they were doing 75 years ago. What are we doing there, we haven't got a clue. It only breeds these fear mongering idiots like Tancedo, Guliani, Cheney-Bush and the Minutemen, not to mention all the kids that are being brainwashed into being terrorists.There's a lot of money to be made with a frightened people,that's for sure.

Posted by: chicagojoe | Nov 13, 2007 12:07:23 PM

Those who spew "scare-tactics, fear-mongering" need to pay attention to the news that is NOT being reported in this country. Think about it!

Thousands of United States citizens have been killed by illegal immigrants! More than the number who lost their lives on 9/11. They include citizens from all walks of life! Every one of them would still be alive today if our borders were sealed and our elected officials and law enforcement did their jobs by enforcing our immigration laws! Where is the outrage for those lives lost? Isn't it just another form of "terrorism" - terrorism run by our political leaders, corporations and those who want open borders.?.

Tancredo is absolutely correct to run this ad and make those statements! This family supports Mr. Tancredo's efforts to stop the spiral of lawlessness that is overtaking this country.

Posted by: Tancredo4prez | Nov 13, 2007 8:45:58 PM

Funny that this alarmist kind of ad is viewed as something bad, but Al Gore makes a whole alarmist movie and its Nobel Prize material. (I mean, come on, Al's a great guy, but he's no Arafat!) Why are we afraid to address the security issues of our border?

Posted by: TexBork | Nov 13, 2007 8:47:27 PM

ALRIGHT, everyone scared to walk into a mall, vote Tancredo. Everyone that's NOT A SISSY, vote FOR YOUR COUNTRY!I know a lot of immagrants that are wonderful people, and a lot of American-born terrorists. Closing the borders doesn't slow crime, enforcing laws slows crime.

Posted by: able | Nov 13, 2007 9:39:10 PM

Tom Tancredo has the honesty and the courage to tell it as it is. There is only one other candidate, Duncan Hunter in his class as a conservative Christian who is concerned about Americans and not just about the desires of big money to open the borders to an endless supply of cheap labor no matter the consequences. Support and vote for Tom Tancrdo. Our country needs this rare politician with a back bone.

Posted by: John R. Wunderlich | Nov 13, 2007 10:48:19 PM

As a long time Democrat that served in the military and has often felt that the problem with our party is the inability to seperate fact from fiction. I have found a person that I can support. Tom Tancredo is correct the cost to our nation caused by week politicians from both parties has placed us in terrible times.
Our current leadership including our mis-guided and mis-leading president, our agenda promoting congress and our try to make law supreme court are heading us into a collision course with disaster.
Tom Tancredo is honest, authentic, and the best candidate to run for office since The R.R. got my vote twice.
I have only voted for one Republican for President. I will vote for Tom Tancredo or another person who represents his views on border security and illegal imigration.
I urge all conservative Democrats to support Tom Tancredo for President.

Posted by: Joe Crose | Nov 14, 2007 1:33:19 AM

If this guy is such a good candidate, why doesn't he have commercials reviewing his stance on POLITICAL ISSUES? Why is he trying to SCARE people into voting for him? MY OPINION IS, if he's really THAT scared, he's a darned sissy! I like malls and I'm not afraid to walk in one with immigrants present.

Posted by: able | Nov 14, 2007 4:36:49 AM

able: I don't think you're seeing the entire message in the ad, if you think this is about going shopping in a mall! Maybe that's why you chose "able" as your name - it can become UNable so quickly.

Do you really know what's going on in America? at the border? in our cities? with trade?

Maybe you're spending too much time in the malls and not enough time researching the real issues of our nation.

Posted by: tancredo4prez | Nov 14, 2007 8:50:23 AM

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