Not Without Tancredo

The Tea Party Nation convention in Nashville lost two of its biggest headliners as criticism of the event mounted and Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) pulled out (according to a convention organizer, it was because of conflicting information from the House ethics committee), leaving Sarah Palin as the only major Tea Party hero to speak there.

But the convention wasn't left completely stranded: former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), who rain a fiercely anti-illegal-immigration (and sometimes plain anti-immigration) campaign for president in 2008, spoke at the event this morning, The Wall Street Journal reports--and, as Tancredo is wont to do, he said some controversial things.


Such as: "Thank God John McCain lost the election," which was reportedly met with cheers from the audience...and "Sarah Palin would not be free to tell it like it is."

He blasted the "cult of multiculturalism" in America, the Journal reports--which is in keeping with Tancredo's traditional interests, but not necessarily a big issue for the fiscal conservatives in the Tea Party movement--and credited McCain's loss with the rise of the Tea Party movement.

And it's true: the Tea Party movement wouldn't have started if there wasn't an Obama stimulus and mortgage plan to oppose.