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The Romney-Rudy flap over immigration is heating up. Is Romney getting nervous over Rudy's efforts to make headway in Iowa? Is he trying to get to the right of Rudy on an issue other than abortion(which is a sore subject and not a good topic for him to raise these days)? With Fred Thompson not in the race and John McCain fading we may see more back and forth between these two.

As for Thompson, Campaign Spot has a solid assessment of what is going on. Thompson folks have indeed been dismayed at the turmoil of late and the addition of Lacy is meant to set things right. The calendar is not their friend at this point. They have a few weeks to prepare for the official entry and to have ready answers for the host of questions about his record and position on issues. More important that all that, which may have minimal impact on the average voter, he will need to have a clear vision of what his run is about and why he offers something the other contenders don't. With the new SC primary date( more later today) he could be looking at the Iowa caucus just 4 months after his official start. (Does he even compete in Iowa? Does he just focus on SC and Florida, hoping to use those as a springboard to Super Duper Sunday?)

UPDATE: Others pick up on the point that Romney in the last debate said it wasn't a good idea to characterize others' positions. Unclear to me still why in days leading up to Ames Romney would want to deviate from his otherwise positive message by getting into a joust with someone not even on the Ames ballot. It also seems odd to pick on sanctuary cities since Cambridge and Somerville, MA designated themselves as sanctuary cities during Romney's tenure and as far as I have found he did nothing to stop them, such as conditioning or cutting off state funding.

topics:
John McCain, Abortion, Immigration, Oil