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Conservative firebrand Tom Tancredo will run for governor of Colorado despite strident objections from the state GOP, the former congressman is set to announce later Monday.

Tancredo floated the possibility of a third-party gubernatorial run last week, demanding that the two-current GOP candidates who have both been beset by scandals withdraw from the race after the August 10 primary if polls show Democrat John Hickenlooper far ahead.

The Republicans - Scott McInnis and Dan Maes - both scoffed at Tancredo's threat, prompting the onetime Republican presidential candidate to step up his announcement.

"I will officially announce at noon that I will seek the nomination of the constitution party," Tancredo told The Denver Post.

The move gave rise to a heated exchange between Tancredo and Colorado GOP chairman Dick Wadhams on local radio station KHOW Monday, with the two men descending into a shouting match over what is best for the Colorado Republican party.

"Why don't you wait until after the primary?" Wadhams implored Tancredo.

"Because you know as well as I do, if I am going to run, I have to get going," responded Tancredo. "There is no downside for either one of these guys to simply say 'If I am not ahead at that time I will get out.'"

(Of the GOP, Tancredo said: “What they could do is nominate a straw man or nobody and say that if it looks like I could have a chance, Republicans could support me, or they could split the vote, those bozos,” the congressman said. “They could pull someone off the street. If he’s actually alive, he could run.”

"What will your agenda be?" Wadhams also asked Tancredo sarcastically. "Are you going to keep talking about impeaching Obama and bombing Mecca?

McInnis, a prominent Colorado lawyer apologized earlier this month for plagiarizing several passages of a judge's work in producing a series of essays for which he was paid $300,000 to write as part of a fellowship in 2003. Maes, meanwhile, is facing political troubles too, agreeing earlier this month to pay more than $17,000 in a fine for campaign finance violations.

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Last week, 21 tea party groups around the state, including three from the Western Slope, urged the congressman not to enter the race as a third-party candidate, reminding Tancredo about something he wrote them in a letter months ago: “Leaving the party is not the answer.”

Tancredo said the tea party groups are mad at him, and the GOP is angry with him, but maybe the Democrats will invite him to some events.

“I’m going to do whatever I can do, but I don’t know I’m going to get that many invitations,” Tancredo said. “They’ve called me a maniacal egotist. That would be a fun T-shirt. Vote for the maniacal egotist. He’s more than just a pretty face.”

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my major quarrels with Tancredo were in two areas: first, his unnecessarily vindictive, shrill, bullying, nativist and most of all profoundly naive approach to the issue of illegal immigration, which caused the man to be embraced by extremist, racist fringe groups regardless of how much Tancredo insisted he was not a racist. Tancredo had an incredible knack for using terminology that tended to depersonalize and even demonize American citizens and well-wishers alike who happened to be of different colors or faiths than most Americans.

Even while the Republicans controlled Congress, Tancredo's tenure there wasn't exactly a bright, shining beacon of intelligence and accomplishment. Tancredo has a reputation as an utterly neffective gadfly - indeed, often an outright embarrassment to his party and district. He is so extreme and controversial in his views - especially in his self-anointed role as Crusader against the Alien Hordes - that he has been consigned to the political margins by his very own party. The Republicans trot him out now and then, but only to make the rest of them look statesmanlike and moderate by comparison. And now that the Dems control Congress, Tancredo has zero influence whatsoever.

While the Congressman apparently takes great pleasure in orchestrating high-profile, headline-grabbing stunts such as saddling up for border patrols or bullying ICE to get a 14-year-old honor student deported, he is simply not a recognized leader in the House of Representatives. He is adept at snaring headlines and airplay, and he's the titular head of an immigration caucus that has no real power. He has no influence where it counts - with his peers. He's viewed as a buffoon, a Republican Al Sharpton.

It's instructive to contrast Tancredo's overblown, messianic rhetoric with what he's actually accomplished in the past seven years. The disconnect is simply stunning. In his own mind and that of a few gullible supporters for whom "tough talk" about immigration is all that matters, Tancredo is a Churchillian statesman. But when you look at the facts and at what he's accomplished, he's just another sleazy, Machiavellian politico.

Despite not having served in the military, Tancredo likes nothing more than running around with a U.S.S. Ronald Reagan "gimme cap" on his head: a reminder of his Congressional tour of the warship. He even has the gall to question the personal courage of his most recent opponent, decorated Marine and Navy veteran Bill Winter.

He likes to talk in apocalyptic terms about the forces of "radical multiculturalism" threatening to knock down America's doors. For example, according to commentator Paul Jacob, Tancredo recently said: "There are places right now in East L.A. and southern Texas that you would honestly - there is absolutely nothing that you would say makes them part of the United States of America. They are a separate country - it is a separate country - right now, at this moment." His support by racist groups and heavy funding by known racists was exposed by the Bill Winter campaign in 2006.

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Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off