deportation of illegal immigrants. She opposed in-state tuition for illegal immigrant students. Gubernatorial campaign After Governor Romney stated that he would not seek re-election, Healey was dubbed the presumptive Republican nominee for the state's highest elected office. However, Healey faced early competition from within her own party from Republican Christy Mihos, the former owner of a chain of convenience stores. The state Republican Party tried to steer Mihos into a race against Senator Ted Kennedy, and also guaranteed him a spot on the ballot in the Republican primary for the governorship, yet Mihos opted to launch his campaign as an independent, making the general election a three-person race; Deval Patrick was the Democratic nominee. Early polls showed Patrick with as much as a 25-point lead over Healey following a competitive Democratic primary, despite most voters backing Healey's support of rolling back the state income tax to five percent, denying in-state tuition rates at state colleges to undocumented immigrants, denying driver's licenses to such residents and requiring photo identification for voting. Campaign ads Following the primaries, a TV ad by Healey criticized her gubernatorial rival, Deval Patrick, for serving as the lawyer for the killer of a Florida highway patrol officer gunned down on a rural road. In 1985, Patrick, then a lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, worked to reverse the death sentence imposed on killer Carl Ray Songer. "Her approach is to protect the victims and Deval Patrick's approach is always to protect convicted criminals," said Healey's campaign manager Tim O'Brien. Now, under Florida law, Songer is eligible for parole. The "Cop Killer" campaign ad was featured on a segment of the Opie and Anthony radio show about negative campaign ads. The ad was criticized on the air for its lack of information about the case. She criticized Patrick for having written to the Massachusetts Parole Board on behalf of Benjamin LaGuer, who proclaims innocence for a 1983 sexual assault, and for corresponding with the inmate. During the heat of the campaign two unidentified men visited LaGuer in prison and allegedly offered him $100,000 if would turn that correspondence over to them. Critics of Healey's ad argued that it confused the proper role of criminal defence lawyers in the judicial system. Patrick argued that Songer hadn't been sentenced fairly because he wasn't able to present evidence of his good character during the sentencing hearing. "The federal appeals court