February 18, 2016 10:44 AM UTC

Tancredo thinks he might be useful to Cruz later

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• by: Jason Salzman

(Don’t laugh. – Promoted by Colorado Pols)

In a Feb. 2 radio interview with KNUS 710-AM host Peter Boyles, former Rep. Tom Tancredo said GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz never took him up an his offer to start an organization backing Cruz.

It was last year, after Tancredo had just penned a Breitbart column announcing his departure from the Republican Party. Tancredo was Rep. Steve King’s guest on an Iowa hunting trip, shooting “a lot of pheasants,” with Cruz and others, Tanc told Boyles:

TANCREDO:  So, we’re there at this hunt… And I just wrote the column that week that I had left the Republican Party, but that I was going to start a Colorado Independents for Cruz thing.  And he got [the article] — somebody had sent it to him.  And so, we’re in Iowa and about to go down to dinner, and he says to me, “Hey!  I saw that article! I really appreciate it!  Boy, we’re going to get back to you.  I told my people,” you know, “follow up on that!”  Of course, he never did.

But why, you wonder? Cruz is with Tancredo on immigration, notwithstanding Sen. Marco Rubio’s twisted attempts to make Cruz look immigrant-friendly. Tancredo and Cruz align against choice, against gun safety laws, etc. So I called Tancredo to find out. Why doesn’t Cruz want him?

Tancredo told me he can only speculate, but he assumes the Cruz campaign doesn’t think he’s needed at this point.

“My outreach is to Independents, right, for Cruz,” he said. “Well you can’t vote in the Republican primary here, you can’t go to the caucuses, unless you are a registered Republican. So the only value I would add, if any, is after Cruz is nominated.”

“Who would I talk to, the Jefferson County Republican Party?’ said Tancredo. “I don’t think they will invite me, for some reason.”

That makes sense, I told Tanc.

Still, Tancredo has gone ahead and set up a Facebook page, which he and others update regularly, called CO Independents for Ted Cruz.

“Not Just for Republicans,” is the headline.