Tancredo blasted for Poll Test idea

Former congressman Tom Tancredo took heat Friday for remarks at the national Tea Party convention that critics viewed as calling for a return to Jim Crow laws.
But Tancredo said he wasn't targeting a specific group when he suggested in Nashville there should be a "civics-literacy" test before someone could vote.

"People who could not even spell the word 'vote' or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House," Tancredo said in his opening-day speech Thursday.

"His name is Barack Hussein Obama."

Tests were used to prevent blacks from voting during segregation and were banned by the Voting Rights Act in 1964.

Tancredo said Friday that his call for a civics-literacy test
dates to 2007, when he was a Republican presidential candidate and was impressed with how much an immigrant he met on the trail knew about America.

Told his remarks were creating an uproar — particularly among liberal bloggers — Tancredo laughed and joked that they were "quoting me accurately again." He then bemoaned what he called "the left's obsession with race."

http://www.denverpost.com/politics/ci_14345675#ixzz0f4ezHrxK