Collins for Congress and immigration

It looks like former Congressman Mac Collins will make another run for the 8th District next year. He's not announcing yet, but you don't have to read too far between the lines to see he's planning on it.

That would put him against retired Air Force Major General Rick Goddard, and presumably one of those guys would face incumbent U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall, D-Ga., in the general election.

There was a lot of hullabaloo and back-slapping among D.C. (and local) Republican types when Goddard was recruited as a candidate. (At least that's what the pundits say.) So I've got to wonder how they'll feel about this potential upsetting of the apple cart.

But, then, Collins did come close to beating Marshall last year (so close that he never, to my knowledge, actually conceded the race). I'll be calling all the usual suspects for analysis, etc., for tomorrow's paper, but I doubt the Republican strategy folks in D.C. will be too forthcoming about how a Collins run would affect the race.

Potentially more interesting than all of this is an op-ed Collins sent The Telegraph today, which is what led me to ask if he's planning another run. Basically he says that Congress should stop worrying about immigration reform and start enforcing the laws already on the books. Particularly, that the federal government should start deporting folks.

The op-ed also conatains this, which will probably be hard to run to the right of:

"The Congress should repeal the law giving citizenship to a child born to an illegal alien in our country. It is not required within our constitution to grant this citizenship. It is wrong and it is costly."