Jim Gilchrist | |
|---|---|
| Born | James Walter Gilchrist Jr. |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Minuteman Project |
| Political party | Republican |
| Other political affiliations | Constitution (2005) |
James Walter Gilchrist Jr. is an American political activist and the co-founder and president of The Minuteman Project, an activist group whose aim is to prevent illegal immigration across the southern border of the United States.
Gilchrist served in the U.S. Marine Corps and received a Purple Heart medal while in the infantry during the Vietnam War, 1968 - 1969. [2]
Gilchrist and Chris Simcox are widely recognized as the founders of the Minuteman Project. They founded the organization on October 1, 2004. [3] The two staged a month-long border watch project in April 2005, and that event catapulted the Minuteman movement into the national spotlight. [4] Gilchrist chose to locate the project in Arizona because there was a disproportionately large number of undocumented immigrants crossing the border in that state. [5]
Gilchrist holds conservative views on education, health care, and taxes. He was registered with the American Independent Party, the California affiliate of the Constitution Party, but has since re-registered as a Republican, [6] and is an adamant supporter of immigration enforcement, law enforcement, and the military. He announced his endorsement of Mike Huckabee for President in December 2007. [7] The personal endorsement of Huckabee by Gilchrist met with strong criticism from other Minutemen and anti-illegal immigration activists. [8]
During the 2016 presidential election, Gilchrist felt that the building of a wall and mass deportation directly aligned with the Minuteman Project's missions. Gilchrist stated that he felt that his goals were reaffirmed and accomplished upon his observation of such widespread awareness of immigration issues. [9] He initially supported Ted Cruz for president, who openly criticized Barack Obama's policy of amnesty, and he was a consistent opponent against Obama's push for immigration reform. [10]
Gilchrist unsuccessfully ran as an American Independent Party candidate for the United States House of Representatives representing California's 48th congressional district to replace Republican Christopher Cox, who resigned to become Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
In the low-turnout open primary for Cox's seat held on October 4, 2005, Gilchrist finished behind two Republicans but ahead of all other candidates, including Democrats. He received 14.8% of the vote (a total of 13,423 votes). He was the only one running for his party, and therefore automatically advanced into the run-off.
Gilchrist lost to Republican state Senator John Campbell in the December 6 general election, receiving 25.5% (26,507) of the vote. Campbell received 44.4% (46,184), Steve Young (Democrat) 27.8% (28,853), Bea Tiritilli (Green) 1.4% (1,430), and Bruce Cohen (Libertarian) 0.9% (974).
In a March 2006 interview with the Orange County Register , Gilchrist stopped just short of calling for his followers to pick up their guns: "I'm not going to promote insurrection, but if it happens, it will be on the conscience of the members of Congress who are doing this," he said. "I will not promote violence in resolving this, but I will not stop others who might pursue that." [11]
In October 2006, Gilchrist appeared on Democracy Now and abruptly ended the interview after Karina Garcia started accusing him of being a murderer and said that he has ties to the white supremacist group National Alliance. [12]
In May 2010, Politico reported that Howie Morgan, the Minuteman Project's political director, may have solicited donations from political campaigns in exchange for Gilchrist's endorsement. [13] Rick Perry, Parker Griffith, and Tim Bridgewater were all recipients of Gilchrist's endorsements in 2010. Mo Brooks, an Alabama politician running against Griffith, said that Morgan indicated Gilchrist would endorse Brooks if Morgan was hired. [13]
In September 2014, the Daily Show made a segment about the Honduran children's immigration featuring an interview with Jim Gilchrist, who compared the recent events at the border with a Trojan Horse situation, the vanguard of a Latino invasion of the United States. The correspondent Michael Che poked fun at Gilchrist's "Operation Normandy" initiative against immigrants: "If this is Operation Normandy, and the children are invading us, wouldn't that make us the Nazis?" Gilchrist warned against the dangers of the "latinization of America" that the young refugees posed and added, to a baffled interviewer, "We're all going to die some day. (...) I'm not giving a death wish on these children coming here (...) I'm saying that there's some things realistically you cannot stop." [14]
Michael Dale Huckabee is an American political commentator, Baptist minister, and former politician who served as the 44th governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007. He was a candidate for the Republican Party presidential nomination in both 2008 and 2016.
James Thomas Kolbe was an American politician who served as a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives. He represented Arizona's 5th congressional district from 1985 to 2003 and its 8th congressional district from 2003 to 2007. A moderate, pro–abortion rights Republican, he came out as gay in 1996 after voting in support of the Defense of Marriage Act; his subsequent re-elections made him the second openly gay Republican elected to Congress.
The Minuteman Project is an organization which was founded in the United States in August 2004 by a group of private individuals who sought to extrajudicially monitor the United States–Mexico border's flow of illegal immigrants. Founded by Jim Gilchrist and Chris Simcox, the organization's name is derived from the name of the Minutemen, militiamen who fought in the American Revolution. The Minuteman Project describes itself as "a citizens' Neighborhood Watch on our border", and it has attracted the attention of the media due to its focus on the issue of illegal immigration.
In the fall of 2005, a special election was held in California's 48th congressional district to choose a United States representative to replace Republican Christopher Cox, who resigned effective August 2, 2005, to become Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. A Special primary election was held on October 4. Because no candidate received more than 50% of the vote, a runoff general election took place on December 6, 2005. The top vote getter from each party moved to the runoff contest, which only required a candidate to receive a plurality of the vote. Republican candidate John Campbell ultimately won the runoff with only 44% of the vote, as there were three major candidates, rather than the usual two.
The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps was a volunteer group at one time headed by Chris Simcox and dedicated to preventing illegal crossings of the United States border with Mexico. Arguing that the government was insufficiently concerned with securing the border, they organized several state chapters, with the intention of providing law enforcement agencies with evidence of immigration law violations. The group was one of several that emerged for the proliferation of civilian border patrol groups at the US-Mexico border. Arguably, the emergence of these groups can be linked to the increasing criminalization and securitization of immigration. Simcox stated that the group merely reported incidents to law enforcement, and did not directly confront immigrants. There was a standard operating procedure (SOP) that was to be followed by Minutemen volunteers, with rules including not speaking to, approaching, gesturing towards or having physical contact in any way with any suspected border crossers. According to Anthony Ramirez of the New York Times, the organization "has been criticized as being a right-wing militia".
Chris Simcox is the American co-founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (MCDC), the project's main spokesperson, and a convicted sex offender. In June 2016, he was convicted of child sexual abuse and is serving a 19.5-year sentence.
The 2006 Arizona 8th congressional district election was an election for the United States House of Representatives for the open seat of incumbent Republican Jim Kolbe, who was not running for re-election. The primary was held on September 12, 2006, and the two major party winners were Republican Randy Graf, a former state Representative who challenged Kolbe for the GOP nomination in 2004, and former State Senator Gabby Giffords. Libertarian Dave Nolan, who was uncontested in the primary, was also in the November 7, 2006 general election. Graf was considered too conservative for the district: Kolbe withheld his endorsement, and towards the end of the election the National GOP pulled their support. By election time, most non-partisan analyses considered this race the most likely district to switch hands, which it did, as Giffords won a decisive victory, 54% to 42%.
From January 3 to June 3, 2008, voters of the Republican Party chose their nominee for president in the 2008 United States presidential election. Senator John McCain of Arizona was selected as the nominee through a series of primary elections and caucuses culminating in the 2008 Republican National Convention held from Monday, September 1, through Thursday, September 4, 2008, in Saint Paul, Minnesota. President George W. Bush was ineligible to be elected to a third term due to the term limits established by the 22nd Amendment.
The Mitt Romney presidential campaign of 2008 began on January 3, 2007, two days before Mitt Romney left office as governor of Massachusetts, when he filed to form an exploratory committee with the Federal Election Commission to run for President of the United States as a Republican in the 2008 election. Subsequently, on February 13, 2007, he formally announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president in 2008. He did so at the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan, as an emblem of American ingenuity.
The Mike Huckabee 2008 presidential campaign began on January 28, 2007, when former Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for President of the United States for the 2008 election. Huckabee ultimately ended his bid for the nomination after losing the Texas Republican primary on March 4, 2008.
Mike Huckabee is the former Governor of Arkansas (1996–2007) and was an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican Party nomination for President of the United States in the 2008 presidential election. He was running for the Republican Party nomination for President of the United States in the 2016 presidential election but suspended his campaign on February 1, 2016
The 2010 United States Senate election in Arizona took place on November 2, 2010, along with other elections to the United States Senate in other states as well as elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections. The primaries were held on August 24, 2010. Incumbent Republican U.S. senator John McCain, who had lost the 2008 United States presidential election to then-United States Senator from Illinois Barack Obama, ran for reelection to a fifth term and won. As of 2024, this was the last time the counties of Coconino and Pima voted for the Republican candidate.
The Political Cesspool is a weekly far-right talk radio show founded by Tennessean political activist James Edwards and syndicated by the organizations Liberty News Radio Network and Accent Radio Network in the United States. First broadcast in October 2004 twice a week from radio station WMQM, per Edwards it has been simulcast on Stormfront Radio, a service of the white nationalist Stormfront website and as of 2011 is broadcast on Saturday nights on WLRM, a blues and southern soul radio station in Millington, Tennessee. Its sponsors include the white separatist Council of Conservative Citizens and the Institute for Historical Review, a Holocaust denial group.
On May 30, 2009, 29-year-old Raul Flores Jr. and his daughter, nine-year-old Brisenia Ylianna Flores, were murdered during a home invasion in Arivaca, Arizona. The perpetrators were Shawna Forde, Jason Eugene Bush and Albert Gaxiola, all members of Forde's vigilante nativist group, Minutemen American Defense (MAD). Gina Gonzalez, the victims' wife and mother, was wounded but survived the attack after exchanging gunfire with the intruders, wounding Bush.
The 2016 United States Senate election in Arizona was held on November 8, 2016, to elect a member of the U.S. Senate to represent the State of Arizona, concurrently with the 2016 U.S. presidential election, other elections to the U.S. Senate in other states and elections to the U.S. House of Representatives, as well as various state and local elections.
Kelli Ward is an American politician who served as the chair of the Arizona Republican Party from 2019 to 2023. She previously served in the Arizona State Senate from 2013 to 2015.
The 2016 presidential campaign of Mike Huckabee, the 44th Governor of Arkansas, began on May 5, 2015, at an event in his hometown of Hope, Arkansas. Huckabee's candidacy for the Republican nomination in the 2016 presidential election was his second, after having previously run in 2008. Following a disappointing showing in the Iowa caucuses, Huckabee ended his run on February 1, 2016.
The 2022 United States Senate election in Arizona was held on November 8, 2022, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the state of Arizona.
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