July 23, 2007 11:16 AM

Brownback and Tancredo sniping intensifies ***UPDATED***

UPDATED at the end.
By the way, WE TOLD YOU this was a "rivalry to watch."

File photo by M.E. Sprengelmeyer, from Odebolt, Iowa, July 14, 2007

The spat between Sen. Sam Brownback and Rep. Tom Tancredo kicked up a notch on Monday morning, with both sides firing new "distortion" charges at one another.

It's a fight taking place on the second tier of the Republican presidential contest, where Brownback and Tancredo are among a group of candidates hoping to gain traction before the Aug. 11 Ames Straw Poll in Iowa -- a symbolic test of candidate support that's expected to winnow what's now a crowded GOP field.

The recap in a nutshell:

* Tancredo has long questioned Brownback's commitment to fighting illegal immigration because of his past co-sponsorship of comprehensive immigration reform that Tancredo equates to "amnesty."

* Brownback fired back earlier this month, demanding that Tancredo return campaign contributions he has received from John Tanton, "the founder of a major Planned Parenthood network in Michigan."

On WHO radio in Des Moines on Monday morning, Tancredo lashed out at Brownback over recorded telephone messages being left for would-be Republican supporters. (The Des Moines Register's instant coverage is HERE.)

In one recorded message (played during the radio broadcast), a woman's voice says: "Say no to Tom Tancredo and his Planned Parenthood friends," and implies that supporting Tancredo means supporting abortion.

Tancredo said Tanton, a well-known immigration reform advocate, only supports him for the immigration issue, and that he has a "perfect" 30 year record opposing abortion -- "and I've been there actually longer than Sam Brownback has been there."

In an interview, Tancredo said he was demanding an apology from Brownback over what he called an "outrageous" distortion.

"I can be accused of a lot of things, but being pro-choice is not one of them. And the thing is, Sen. Sam Brownback knows it. It's not ambiguous... That's why he should apologize. He says he's a good Christian man, I've always thought of him as being that, but this would not indicate to me that he's following those principles. If he OK'd something like this, which I'm sure he did, then he's being deceptive. It's not a very Christian position to take."

Brownback has said he would not back down. After the two men appeared seated side-by-side during Republican Rep. Steve King's "Homecoming" dinner in Odebolt, Brownback told a reporter he still wants Tancredo to return the money.

Brownback said at the time:

"I've had people who've given funds to my campaign (but) when I saw where they were on the issues, I said, 'I don't want to associate with those individuals.' "

In a statement released Monday morning, Brownback's campaign stuck by the criticisms of Tancredo, saying:

"The facts are clear: Tom Tancredo says he is committed to being pro-life but has accepted thousands of dollars from the founder of a major Planned Parenthood network. The only in accuracy in this matter is Tom Tancredo's hysterical and disingenuous distortion of Senator Brownback's record."

Meanwhile, the statement also questioned Tancredo over Tanton's "racist statements on minorities and population control." For years, various critics have tried to tie Tancredo to more extreme elements of the immigration reform movement by pointing to his financial support from Tanton.

We've written about this conflict before. And it sounds like we'll have to write about it again.

But as a public service (or the opposite), we hereby invite the two campaigns and their supporters to continue this never-ending rift here in our COMMENTS section.

* * * UPDATE * * *

* * * UPDATE * * *

Lost in the shuffle on Monday, the Eagle Forum's Phyllis Schlafly called in to WHO Radio's Jan Mickelson morning show to defend Tancredo on his anti-abortion stand.

About Tanton's contributions, Schlafly said: "If he thought he (Tanton) was going to change Tom Tancredo on abortion, he's a very foolish man."

A caller challenged the conservative icon, Schlafly, saying Tanton was no run-of-the-mill abortion rights supporter, but actually the founder of a Planned Parenthood group.

But Schlafly called the contribution irrelevant and pointed to Brownback contributors that, she claimed, also support Planned Parenthood.

"I don't think you should play that game, but if you do, Brownback did the same thing," Schlafly told the radio show.

Schlafly apparently has recorded her own telephone messages to defend Tancredo, the Cyclone Conservatives blog reported on Tuesday.

Some abortion opponents have called for a boycott of various companies that it says support abortion rights causes. Schlafly highlighted one of the firms on that list, SBC Communications.

Various executives of SBC Communications have given to Brownback's campaigns, including a number of contributions to Brownback in June 2003, according to Federal Election Commission data. (Here's a list via the Center for Responsive Politics.)

Later that summer, Brownback introduced legislation (the "Consumers, Schools, and Libraries Digital Rights Management Act of 2003") that was inspired, in part, by the company's legal fight with a pornographer, according to Brownback's statement at the time.

In demanding that Tancredo return the Tanton funds, Brownback told us in Odebolt recently that he regularly returns contributions from donors if he finds out they have objectionable political views. We'll see if that happens in this case.

Contacted Tuesday afternoon, the Brownback campaign offered no response. But we're hoping they have a response on Wednesday. So check back.

Posted by M.E. Sprengelmeyer at 11:16 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack