Republican Primary Gets Down and Dirty!

This could be fun.

It could make up for the news media hiding McCain's flaws for 6 months while they claimed he couldn't win.  Every GOP candidate who has been given a good airing has lost support.  

Now they can drag out McCain who has plenty stink of his own and he seems fresh as a daisy.

Romney points out a few flaws, like an out of control temper.

See Romney's Top Ten List of McCain's attacks on other Republicans .  The angry outbursts are alarming, but I assume that most Americans would agree with the senator's more reasoned disparagement of Cheney and Rumsfeld. (I don't think Rumsfeld was worse than Cheney though.)

Meanwhile McCain's team has superimposed Romney's face onto the old John Kerry campaign ad showing the 2004 wind surfing. I can't find that at youtube or via Google search. Also, I found the McCain fo president web site so slow, I gave up searching there after a few minutes.  Not too hot of an internet release if people can't find it.

And a recent incident in which McCain danced off the line of honesty was reported by Time Magazine this way:

McCain seems to be trying perhaps a bit too hard to shift the debate back to his strong suit, national security and Iraq. On Saturday, he criticized Romney for allegedly supporting a timetable for a phased withdrawal. The ambiguous Romney quote from last April that McCain relied on for this assertion came under excruciating examination, and soon enough McCain's usual allies in the news media were calling him out. Romney went one step further, calling his opponent a liar before dialing back the increasingly heated rhetoric.

I saw a video of the original Romney call for a timeline, and I hate to give him any support, but ol' Mitt was severely mis-characterized by McCain's claims.  Romney was calling for a timeline, a timeline for accomplishing goals by the Iraqi government, and the US military as I understood it.  But certainly it was not a call for a timeline to a pull out.  At the most it was an attempt to to tap into support from the the timeline for withdrawal crowd without actually calling for a withdrawal.

For McCain to say it was a call for a timeline for military withdrawal is duplicitous at the least.  I assume some aide pushed the statement into the campaign rotation, and McCain didn't check it out first.  It makes one hope a President McCain (President W 2) won't be taking his administration staff from his campaign.  I already have problems with dishonest and incompetent Republican staffers being dismissed from their posts disappearing, and then reappearing elsewhere like disgraced catholic priests.  Any staffer that pushed an obvious lie like last week's timeline charade has no business helping to run the country.

Speaking of which check this out in Reuters' "McCain, Romney lob 'liberal' smear in Florida push ":

In West Palm Beach, Romney reminded voters that McCain once said he would entertain the idea of joining Kerry's 2004 campaign as a vice presidential running mate.

"Had someone asked me that question, there would not have been a nanosecond of thought about it," Romney told a rally. "It would've been an immediate laugh."

In March 2004, McCain had said: "John Kerry is a close friend of mine. We have been friends for years. Obviously I would entertain it."

But he added: "I foresee no scenario where that would happen."

So ditto on dishonest or incompetent staffers for Romney's crew too, and he has a lot more money to spend. 

BTW, Did you notice that I indicated above that I indicated that Senator McCain has morphed into the second coming of George W. Bush in the last seven years?

I don't think I'm far off the mark especially when Chris Matthew said:

I have to tell you, the president gave your speech tonight. He talked about we’ve got to cut the number of earmarks in half or I’m going to veto the bill. He talked about the war against terrorism. He talked about reform.

It was — he didn’t talk much about the global economic challenge right now. In fact, he said, basically, we’ll get through this, like you do. It was your speech, Senator.

(From Think Progress:" Matthews To McCain: ‘The President Gave Your Speech Tonight'")

See more about McCain's flip flopping/morphing in post here . 

tags: mccain  romney  gop  republicans  campaign  campaign tactics  

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