TOM TANCREDO: A MAN AHEAD OF HIS TIME?

(Associated Press) On Thursday, Republican Presidential candidate Tom Tancredo will announce his withdrawal from the race. Public support for the Colorado Congressman plummeted in the past week, after he proposed "drive-thru deliveries" as a means of reducing hospital costs associated with childbirth to low-income women. In an address to the National Society of Obstetricians in Dallas on December 14th, Tancredo recommended that fast-food establishments in poor neighborhoods be retrofitted so that the first take-out window could be used by physicians to deliver babies directly from the car: Mothers-to-be would position themselves in the back seat of the vehicle so that the doctor (or midwife) could simply reach in and gently pull the baby out. The car's driver would then proceed to the second take-out window, where the infant, hosed down and diapered, would be returned to the happy mom.

Tancredo became a national laughingstock when the General Accounting Office reported that 73% of low-income women do not own a car and cannot afford cab fare.