Posted on 10/15/2007 5:56:39 AM PDT by AngryNeighbor
Sensing weakness, Sen. John McCain and Rudy Giuliani have formed an unspoken alliance to try to torpedo Mitt Romney just as many voters are tuning in to the Republican presidential race.
“I'm not going to con you,” McCain said Monday on ABC’s “Good Morning America” when asked about Romney. “It’s important to be honest with people.” The two are teaming up at a time when the heat is escalating in both nominating contests. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) started attacking Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) by name last week after resisting for months in the service of his “new kind of politics.”
On the Republican side, Romney must figure out how to retain his strength in Iowa and New Hampshire now that loyal Republicans are hearing a lot more about him than the soothing messages they were getting from his heavy schedule of television commercials.
McCain has been running a mostly positive race, even refusing at one point to read a text by his aides that included attacks on Clinton. So his joint barrage with Giuliani is enough of a departure that it is even sparking GOP speculation about whether they might form a future ticket.
The two are friends and Giuliani said that if he weren’t running, he’d support the senator from Arizona. If Giuliani were the nominee, though, he’d need someone to help him turn out the Republican base, and McCain wouldn’t be much help there.
Romney aides see they are facing a fight and are pushing back hard. Kevin Madden, Romney’s national press secretary, said: “Other campaigns will flail about and try and attempt to launch angry attacks on us, and we’re prepared for that.”
“Angry” is aimed at one of Giuliani’s big vulnerabilities – his volatile temperament and the mixed view that New Yorkers had of him when he was mayor. The Romney campaign plans to push that idea – at first subtly and perhaps later overtly – in coming days.
Giuliani and his campaign moved ruthlessly to capitalize on Romney’s statement in last week’s debate that a president should “sit down with your attorneys” in deciding whether congressional authorization was needed to strike Iran.
In a post-debate interview, Giuliani made sport of Romney. “That's one of those moments in a debate where you say something and you go like this," Giuliani told ABC’s Jake Tapper, cupping his hand over his mouth — " ‘Wish I can get that one back.’ "
The former Massachusetts governor, trying to regain his footing, went on the offensive Friday in Sparks, Nev., saying: “Conservatives that have heard me time and again recognize that I do speak for the Republican wing of the Republican Party," Romney said. That was an echo of a crowd-pleasing 2004 line by Howard Dean that he represented the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party."
In New Hampshire the next day, McCain uncharacteristically dumped on Romney by packing many of Romney’s vulnerabilities into one brutal paragraph: “When Governor Romney donated money to a Democratic candidate in New Hampshire, I don't think he was speaking for Republicans. When he voted for a Democratic candidate for president, Paul Tsongas, I don't think he was speaking for Republicans. When he refused to endorse the Contract with America, I don't think he was speaking for Republicans.”
Democrats are also getting an increasingly blunt brawl. Obama had been attacking Clinton by inference, making clear references to her record and letting press coverage fill in the name. But in an op-ed on Thursday in the Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader, he connected the dots himself: “I strongly differ with Sen. Hillary Clinton, who was the only Democratic presidential candidate to support this reckless amendment. … Sen. Clinton says she was merely voting for more diplomacy, not war with Iran. If this has a familiar ring, it should. Five years after the original vote for war in Iraq, Sen. Clinton has argued that her vote was not for war — it was for diplomacy, or inspections.”
Obama told CNN he was “moving into a different phase of the campaign,” and followed that up with a speech criticizing Clinton by name. Opponents note a correlation between his disappointing polls and the coarsening of his rhetoric.
An Obama aide says: “I don’t think it’s as big of a deal as folks in Washington think it is. I know their line, ‘Whatever happened to the politics of hope?’ Iowans expect to know what the differences are in this race, and he’s not making personal attacks. What’s he’s doing is in line with what voters expect.”
And it’s now clear that, Republican or Democrat, they can expect a lot more of it.
John McCain and Rudy Giuliani have formed an unspoken alliance to try to torpedo Mitt Romney
These guys are in for a surprise, because Ron Paul is going to win New Hampshire.
“Then let’s do it and quit our whining.”
I am and will continue too. I refuse to even entertain the possibiility of voting for Rudy, McCain, Romney or Thompson in the primary. I am voting for Hunter and talk about him to all of my conservative friends whenever the opportunity comes up.
I refuse to give up and give into this “only Rudy can beat Hillary” nonesense. In my opinion this election needs to have a clear and decisive choice. Hillary vs. Rudy blur that choice.
Hillary vs. Hunter, the choice couldn’t be starker. And don’t give me that 1% crap. If Hunter did in fact win the nomination, the polls go to 50% 50% on day one.
Fence vs. invasion
Tax cuts vs. bleeding the middle class
Fighting the enemy vs. giving up
Good healthcare vs. rationed/socialist care
Following the Constitution vs. the San Fransisco Chronicle
I put my money on real conservative values
Blecch!
See my tagline.
Romney wants to let lawyers decide EVERYTHING.
Aw, the all-RINO dream ticket. Actually, if Giuliani is the nominee, I hope he does choose McCain. That will result in even more conservatives refusing to vote for him and an even more humiliating defeat.
Rudy/McCain ticket = MEGoody voting 3rd party.
Even many of those willing to vote for this creep don't like him while millions aren't going to vote for him.
Giuliani is the rope the GOP is going to hang itself with. Obvoiusly, it is going to have to suffer a meltdown of Watergate proportion to realize conservatism is the only path to victory.
Good for you.
According to this article, what McCain would do won't matter because he'd be the VP candidate.
Shame on you for wanting defeat. Whose side are you on? Hillary and the DEmocrats love you. Are you going to vote Democrat?
There are many who LOVE defeat and misery. It's sick and perverse.
I’ve never voted 3rd party, and I don’t suppose I ever will (never say, never). But if there isn’t a conservative on the ticket, or somebody that movement conservatives can get behind, I believe the ticket is doomed.
Hitlery is pretty bad. I think she is a Saul Alinsky radical farleft progressive that has more in common with the codepinkoes, than the leftwing pinkhoes in her party. She will radically change America in ways that will insure that no conservative will win the Presidency for generations. Blanket amnesty will be a fait-compli with large ‘RAT majorities in both the House and Senate.
A Rudy/McCain ticket will lose to the hildabeast because of the splinter of Conservatives to 3rd party candidates, and will insure dhimmi status on all of us.
The conserative side. When faced with a choice of two liberals, a conservative has no candidate to vote for.
Voting for a liberal of either party, advances liberalism!
But, the liberal Republican IS the greater of two evils, guaranteeing no conservative President for eight years, guaranteeing Republicans will not regain Congress for a decade and assuring that liberal legislation passes through Congress that only Hillary Clinton could dream of getting through.
I'll stay home.
Save you scolding for the party elite grandma. They’re the ones who will deserve the blame if Hillary wins.
Looks that way. And if we don't like it then they will just call us names and tell us we don't matter. So be it! I get one vote and I will listen to my own conscience for that.
I can’t believe that McCain would settle for V.P. However, having said that, anything is better than a Hillary/Obama ticket.
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