Dick Armey’s vocal support for amnesty is starting to cause him problems with the Tea Party folks. From Politico:
But the Armey attack that seems to be getting the most traction on the right is related to his stance on immigration reform, which many conservatives view as the next major front in their battle with the Obama administration, now that President Barack Obama has signed the healthcare overhaul bill.
Roy Beck of NumbersUSA, a group opposing illegal immigration, since February had been working with local tea party leaders across the country to disseminate a detailed fact sheet chronicling the congressional votes behind Armey’s low rating from NumbersUSA on immigration issues.
Beck told POLITICO he decided to take his anti-Armey campaign public after Armey in last week’s press club appearance blasted the GOP for ostracizing Hispanic voters by calling for an immigration crackdown and declared “there is room” for immigrants in America, which he called “a nation of immigrants.”
In a blog post entitled “Dick Armey stuns tea partiers with open-borders advocacy,” Beck charged that Armey “wants immigration to be treated as a social issue with no place in the tea parties,” and suggested he and FreedomWorks may be trying “to intimidate local tea parties” to shy away from the issue at the behest of “corporate benefactors (who) want the foreign labor to keep pouring in.”
Beck offered no proof of any link between FreedomWorks’ donors and Armey’s stance but said “We’re seeing lots of traffic that shows a lot of anger at (Armey). I would think that he’s endangering his entire standing among the patriots.”
Gary Armstrong, a tea party organizer in East Tennessee, said he recently unsubscribed from FreedomWorks’s email list after learning of Armey’s record and said “right now, I think we should tar-and-feather Dick Armey.”
Brandon said FreedomWorks has received about 100 phone calls asking about Armey’s immigration position, but that most activists have been placated when they’re informed of Armey’s stances, which include opposition to amnesty, but support for a guest worker program.
In a podcast interview with a conservative blogger after his press club appearance, Armey said “I understood that I made a damn fool of myself over immigration and should have stayed away from that subject.”
Armey’s acknowledgment is actually a good sign. Libertarians like him might hold any number of outlandish, anti-conservative views — not just open borders but legalizing prostitution, for instance, or privatizing the Air Force — but so long as they keep those views to themselves, they can be useful allies for actual conservatives.