December 19, 2007 6:25 PM

Tancredo walking away?

File photo (June 2007 in Allison, Iowa) by M.E. Sprengelmeyer

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Rep. Tom Tancredo plans to make a "major" announcement about his presidential campaign here on Thursday, with the Associated Press and FoxNews both reporting that he will throw in the towel on his long-shot run for president.

Tancredo declined to confirm that he plans to quit the race.

"I will neither confirm nor deny that report," Tancredo told the network. "I wouldn't have a press conference if I didn't have anything to say."

UPDATE: Some of Tancredo's more faithful campaign volunteers got calls Wednesday inviting them to have a brief meeting with the congressman shortly before his scheduled press conference.

"They just said he had some things to talk over," said Ron Duncan, a retired truck driver from Missouri Valley, Iowa.

Duncan said he also got a call from former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney's campaign asking him to help put rumors to rest about Tancredo's pending withdrawal from the contest.

Rep. Ron Paul's campaign called another longtime Tancredo supporter, Craig Halverson, director of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and the group Citizens for Tom Tancredo, to recruit him into their campaign.

"I'm shocked," Halverson said. "All the work and all the time we put in. We're shocked. We thought he was going to go all the way."

Halverson said he would wait for the official word, "then I'm going to jump on the bandwagon of Ron Paul."

Tancredo's 62nd birthday is Thursday, and he has known to pick sentimental dates on the calendar to make major announcements.

Earlier this year, he waited until the Colorado Rockies were eliminated from the baseball World Series before announcing that he would retire from congress at the end of his term. Why? Because his predecessor in the seat, the late Rep. Dan Schaefer, announced his retirement right after a Denver Broncos Super Bowl victory.

Tancredo has been stuck in the bottom tier of the Republican presidential polls, even as rival campaigns have tried to match some of his hard-line rhetoric opposing illegal immigration.

He first began flirting with a White House bid in 2005, saying that, while he did not expect to be elected president, he hoped to force other candidates to adopt his positions.

He has pinned his hopes on two early, springboard states: Iowa, where the caucuses will be held on Jan. 3, 2008, and New Hampshire, which holds the first primary five days later.

Still, his poll numbers have been mired in single-digits, and in recent days, two close allies in the immigration reform movement have endorsed other candidates.

First, Jim Gilchrist, founder of The Minuteman Project, announced he was backing former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Then Tancredo's friend and close congressional ally, Rep. Steve King of Iowa, endorsed former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee.

The Gilchrist endorsement particularly angered Tancredo and his supporters, since they believe Huckabee has only recently converted to a harder-line position opposing illegal immigration and has supported tuition breaks for the children of illegal immigrants.

Since early in the campaign, Tancredo has pledged to stop various candidates he thinks are on the opposite side of the illegal immigration issue. Since then, Huckabee has surged from the bottom tier into the lead in the Iowa polls.

In an interview this summer, Tancredo had some kind words for Huckabee — but not on immigration.

"(If) Huckabee had a lot of money, he'd be a really formidable opponent ... Very smart guy. Very nice guy. I like him," Tancredo said. "I wish he was on our side on our issue (immigration) ...He's just not with us on the issue."

Some media outlets were speculating about which candidate Tancredo might endorse if he dropped out. In the latest Des Moines Register poll, he had support of 6 percent of likely Republican caucus participants, and in theory his block could give someone else a significant boost.

Tancredo has long been a magnet for controversy over his harsh rhetoric on immigration, or his statements that the United States should threaten to bomb Muslim holy sites as a way to deter radical Islamic terrorists.

He has pushed the envelope even further with television advertisements during the presidential campaign.

One used gruesome photographs and the sound of an exploding bomb to warn about terrorists sneaking across unguarded borders. Another ad showed bloody bodies lined up after gangland assassinations, blaming illegal immigration for violence by Latin American street gangs.

Critics ripped the ads as desperate fear-mongering, and called Tancredo a xenophobe or racist — charges he has long denied.

Earlier this month, when Tancredo boycotted the Republicans' Spanish-language debate, his campaign released an online video that used numerous Mexican stereotypes to spoof his rivals. Among the scenes, rival candidates were shown wearing sombreros, riding trucks with dark-skinned farm workers or cheering at a "presidential cock fight."

Posted by M.E. Sprengelmeyer at 6:25 PM | Comments (3)