Has New Nationalism Found Its Candidate?

From Worldnetdaily, Republicans have this bit of bad news:

Jim Gilchrist, the founder of the Minuteman Project, is considering a run for president in 2008 with the Constitution Party.

Gilchrist has just returned from Florida where he met with the party’s national committee.

Chairman James Clymer told WorldNetDaily the party was excited about the possibility of Gilchrist as its marquis candidate.

“Yes, indeed we are interested,” Clymer said. “Gilchrist spoke to us last weekend in Tampa and our people asked Jim then if he would be the candidate. We think it would be wonderful if Jim Gilchrist would seriously consider being our presidential candidate.”

Gilchrist told WND the only candidate he would support as the Republican Party presidential nominee in 2008 was Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo.

“If John McCain enters the race for president,” Gilchrist said. “I will definitely run. John McCain should have forfeited his right to run for President on the Republican Party the moment he put his name on immigration legislation with Sen. Ted Kennedy.”

I’ve written about “The New Nationalism” before. Gilchrist is the type of guy who could make the race and give those who are concerned about the border a candidate to support. He got almost 25% of the vote in a Republican District in California. He’s a populist figure and somebody who could really mean trouble for the Republican Party in a fall campaign. The guy’s basically a folk hero for doing the job the government won’t. He’s also been fairly effective at keeping the Minutemen racist free.

Now, the GOP could blunt this by nominating Mike Pence or if not him, someone whose reasonable on protecting the borders like Senator George Allen (R-Va.). The only good news for the GOP is that its the Constitution Party offering the nomination.

For those, who don’t know, the Constitution Party has been a much of groupies without a star. They started out to stand behind a Buchanan canidacy that didn’t materialize in 1992 or 1996. In 2000, they courted Bob Smith but didn’t get him, so they settled for Howard Phillips a third time. In 2004, they courted Roy Moore but didn’t get him. If Gilchrist were to take leadership of the party, they’d have to deal with some embarassing people in the local ranks which could cause harm to the campaign, so if Gilchrist is going to do this, he’ll have to get a lot of these state organizations in line to avoid hurting his own reputation.

Still, Gilchrist is the flavor of the year and has the best chance of any of the people that’ve been courted by the Constitution Party to actually become a candidate. I don’t think he’ll win, but I won’t be surprised by Ross Perot-like numbers.

Illegal Immigration, Jim Gilchrist, Minutemen

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