A few months ago, it seemed certain that the next president would be a Democrat - and that the country would return to the values for which it was once known.

Now, I'm not so sure. The Democrats running for president may be more rational than the Republicans, but the Republicans have ... immigration.

And if last week's CNN debate is any indication, the Republicans' apparent front-runners, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, plan to stoke the growing anti-immigrant fervor.

I had thought that the country couldn't sink any lower than Lou Dobbs' hysteria. But there were Romney and Giuliani, trying to outdo one another in their xenophobia.

Clearly, immigration should be an important issue in this campaign. But during the CNN debate, Romney and Giuliani weren't interested in discussing a complex issue. They were interested in milking the issue for votes.

Some of the states hit hardest by illegal immigration have tried to find humane ways to deal with it. When he was governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee wanted to let children of undocumented immigrants be eligible for state-funded scholarships if they had completed school. The goal, he said, was to help them become productive, tax-paying adults.

In the CNN debate, Mitt Romney pounced. "Liberals have great reasons for taking taxpayer money and using it for things they think are the right thing to do," he huffed. "Mike, that's not your money."

Huckabee (certainly no liberal) tried to stand up for American values. "In all due respect," he said, "we're a better country than to punish children for what their parents did. We're a better country."

But Romney would have none of it. "Are we going to give taxpayer money to children who are here illegally?" he persisted.

This is mean-spirited. It is anti-American. It is dangerous.

And make no mistake: this is not solely about illegal immigration. It is about immigrants. Others.

Arab-American immigrants - citizens, workers with green cards, students - felt it after 9/11: hate, hostility, fear, because of their names or appearance.

And the hostility extends to religion. A recent Pew Research Center poll found that 45 percent of Americans would not vote for a Muslim. Some conservative talk-show hosts have been pushing the fiction that Barack Obama is Muslim. There is open hostility to Mitt Romney because he is Mormon. (At what point will the anti-Semites think it's safe to come out in the open?)

A recent Talk of the Nation program included a discussion of studies showing that Americans are reading less - and noting that Americans who read more are also more engaged in civic life. My guess is that unfortunately, the poorly educated - and the better-educated who have let prejudice take control of their brains - won't stay home in this election.

We're less than a month from the first voting. Six months ago, I was counting the days when sanity would return to the White House. And maybe it will. Maybe voters will reject the meanness that Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani showed on CNN last week.

John McCain tried to inject some common sense into the CNN discussion. "This whole debate saddens me a little bit," he said. "We need to sit down as Americans and recognize that these are all God's children."

But the Minutemen and the talk-show hosts and Lou Dobbs are keeping the fire going. So will Republicans like Romney and Giuliani. And politicians around the country know a hot issue when they see one. Last month the Monroe County Republican Party used immigration to beat back Democrats' attempt to take control of the County Legislature.

And last week, I listened to the whoops and cheers from the audience at the CNN debate and wondered: what kind of country are we, really? What have we become?