Sneak Peek: Thompson's Debate Debut

October 8, 2007— -- Fred Thompson makes his much anticipated debate debut Tuesday when the GOP '08ers gather for their sixth meeting of the cycle. The debate, which will run for two hours, will focus on economic issues and CNBC has the live broadcast beginning at 4:00 pm ET, with a rebroadcast on MSNBC at 9:00 pm ET.

Hoping to avoid what they see as Rudy Giuliani's mis-steps at the '08ers' first debate back on May 3 at the Reagan Library, Team Thompson has had the former senator hunkering down for the past number days, preparing for his first match up with his GOP rivals.

The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll of the Republican field shows Thompson hasn't had much of a bounce since entering the race in September. He's now at 19 percent compared to 17 percent in early September, numbers better than John McCain and Mitt Romney nationally, but still behind Giuliani.

The debate comes one day after Thompson announced a national team of senior advisors and surrogates which includes Vice President Cheney's daughter Liz Cheney and former Senator George Allen.

As for the Democrats, Barack Obama joined John Edwards in going after Hillary Clinton's support for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization telling ABC News' Sunlen Miller: "Senator Clinton obviously in 2002 voted to authorize the war in Iraq. And her willingness to once again extend to the president the benefit of the doubt I think indicates that she hasn't fully learned some of the lessons that we saw back in 2002."

"We have to be very cautious in how we approach these kinds of issues. Because we've already seen enormous damage done to US's prestige around the world, the US's strategic interests in the world. Part of the reason Iran has been strengthened is because of that war that had been authorized in Iraq, he added.

Edwards himself stepped up his attack on Clinton in an interview on "progressive" radio. "You've got George Bush out there rattling his saber about going to war in Iran. The last thing we need to do is give that guy any authority on the first step to move forward. So, I do differ with Senator Clinton about this," said Edwards on The Ed Schultz Radio Show.