GOP Debate Promises Immigration Dustup

Immigration promises to be a hot topic at tonight's Republican Presidential candidate debate.

Senator McCain, who helped craft the Senate immigration deal, is the only Republican presidential hopeful to support the so-called reform.

Yesterday, McCain and Romney clashed over the immigration deal. McCain embraced it as a practical solution and Romney dismissed it as unworkable. In Florida McCain, without mentioning his name, took a shot at Romney:

"To want the office so badly that you would intentionally make our country's problems worse might prove you can read a poll or take a cheap shot, but it hardly demonstrates presidential leadership," McCain told members of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce.

Romney replied.

"The immigration approach proposed by Senators McCain and Kennedy falls short of a workable solution to an important problem," the former Massachusetts governor said in a statement. Romney said he respected McCain, but his opposition was based on a "principled disagreement about policies and priorities related to enforcement of our immigration laws."

Making things more interesting, one of Romney's top economic advisers, N. Gregory Mankiw, former chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, signed an op-ed piece in Tuesday's Dallas Morning News supporting the immigration bill.

Even more interesting, Congressman Tancredo says he will start a petition drive and volunteer network to campaign against senators who support the White House-backed immigration plan:

"For a Republican to be talking about other Republicans, trying to take them on and defeat them in primaries, that's a somewhat injudicious thing for me to do. But this is an issue that surpasses all the niceties that go along with political camaraderie that you develop," Tancredo said.

Tancredo made the threat outside Republican Senator Judd Gregg's New Hampshire office. Gregg has not yet decided how he will vote on the Senate deal.

Tonight's debate has the potential to be more exciting than the previous encounters. It should be worth the two hours. The debate starts at 7 p.m. and will be broadcast on CNN.