Getting testy in Florida: McCain and Romney exchanging punches
January 28, 2008
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Like 2 boxers in a ring, John McCain and Mitt Romney are exchanging punches and counter punching as the race for the Florida GOP delegates heat up.
Mitt Romney and John McCain accused each other Monday of harboring liberal tendencies, a charge bordering on blasphemy in the increasingly caustic campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
Romney struck first on the day before the winner-take-all Florida primary, criticizing the Arizona senator for his legislation reducing the role of money in politics, for his position on immigration and for his support of an energy bill that he said would have driven up consumer costs.
“If you ask people, ‘Look at the three things Senator McCain has done as a senator,’ if you want that kind of a liberal Democrat course as president, then you can vote for him,” Romney told campaign workers. “But those three pieces of legislation, those aren’t conservative, those aren’t Republican, those are not the kind of leadership that we need as we go forward.”
McCain answered swiftly in a statement to The Associated Press. He accused the former Massachusetts governor of “wholesale deception of voters. On every one of the issues he has attacked us on, Mitt Romney was for it before he was against it.”
He added, “The truth is, Mitt Romney was a liberal governor of Massachusetts who raised taxes, imposed with Ted Kennedy a big government mandate health care plan that is now a quarter of a billion dollars in the red, and managed his state’s economy incompetently, leaving Massachusetts with less job growth than 46 other states.”
The exchange reflected the stakes in Tuesday’s contest, a prelude to a virtual nationwide primary on Feb. 5.
The polls show McCain and Romney in a state race that is too close to call.
McCain collected endorsements in recent days from Florida’s top two Republican elected officials, Sen. Mel Martinez and Gov. Charlie Crist, as well as the endorsements of a slew of Florida newspapers. The former Vietnam prisoner of war also has universal name recognition, as well as ownership of an issue important to the large number of veterans and active military in the state, national security.
This is a big race for John McCain as this is a Republican only state, which means that only registered Republicans can vote in this primary. McCain has done well in the other states because of getting a large Independent vote. He has not gotten the Republican/Conservative vote, or support for that matter, in those states.
Florida should give us a good idea on how this McCain/Romney race will go when being decided by Republican voters.
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[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptMitt Romney and John McCain accused each other Monday of harboring liberal tendencies, a charge bordering on blasphemy in the increasingly caustic campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Romney struck first on the day … [...]
[...] Getting testy in Florida: McCain and Romney exchanging punches the role of money in politics, for his position on immigration and for his support of an energy bill…. The former Vietnam prisoner of war also has universal name recognition, as well as ownership of an issue [...]