OTTUMWA — U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo leaves little doubt about where he stands on issues he thinks are important.

Tancredo, R-Colo., is an unabashed conservative who touts high marks from the American Conservative Union, National Rifle Association and the National Right to Life Committee. But immigration is what Tancredo is best known for as he pursues a run at the White House in 2008.

Asked to describe his position on immigration, Tancredo is emphatic.

“I can do it in three words ... enforce the law,” he said in an interview Friday the Courier. “We really don’t need many more laws.”

Tancredo says a consistent focus on enforcement of current immigration law means deporting illegal immigrants who are caught and hammering employers who provide jobs for illegal immigrants. He argues that steady enforcement will reduce the factors that drive illegal immigration.

To Tancredo, jobs and social services are the keys to convincing illegal immigrants to leave and return legally later. If jobs and social services are unavailable, the immigrants have little reason to remain. He points to Colorado, which he said managed to achieve those goals. Immigrants left as a result.

Tancredo is adamantly opposed to amnesty for illegal immigrants. Deportation means those people are unable to apply for legal immigration for a set period, he said, not a revolving door. He cast the issue in part as fairness to those who are trying to come to the United States legally.

“Amnesty is when you don’t apply the law,” he said. “There are people obsessed with the idea of amnesty. The president is one.”

Some observers say the Republican Party lacks a top-tier candidate with unassailable conservative credentials. Tancredo agrees with that assessment and says that benefits his campaign. Any difference between himself and the rest of the field is good, as long as the difference “is in the positive sense.”

“I am sick of people who start out running for office in these primaries,” Tancredo said. He acknowledged that conventional wisdom says Republicans start on the right and Democrats start on the left, only to break to the center before the general election. “I think that’s one of the reasons people are so cynical about politics. I don’t blame them.

“There are two kinds of people who get into this,” he continued. “People who want to be somebody, and people who want to do something. I do have an agenda. Absolutely. Here it is. I will not change. I will not deviate.”

Tancredo does have views on other major issues. He favors vouchers and charter schools as a means to create competition in education. He said American higher education is among the best in the world because colleges and universities compete for students.

He also favors a dramatic increase in flex fuel vehicles, calling it a national security issue. The technology exists. There are flex fuel cars on the market. Tancredo said the threshold for cost and technology are low enough to expand use exponentially.

Tancredo is currently touring Iowa after opening a new campaign office. He will be in Fairfield at 7 p.m. Sunday for the Jefferson County Republican Spring Fundraiser at the Fairfield Golf and Country Club.

Matt Milner can be reached at (641) 683-5359 or via e-mail at mwmilner@mchsi.com