Romney Accuses McCain of ‘Nixon Era’ Campaign Tactics

Mitt Romney compared rival John McCain with late President Richard Nixon Thursday, accusing McCain of persistently misrepresenting Romney’s position on the Iraq war for political gain in a style “reminiscent of the Nixon era.”

Romney’s sharp criticism spilled over from the GOP debate in California the night before, where he said McCain was resorting to old-style “dirty tricks” by claiming Romney supported a timetable for troop withdrawal.

Romney’s campaign announced Thursday it would be going on air in several major states voting Feb. 5, when 21 states hold GOP contests.

McCain leveled the troop-withdrawal charge the weekend before Tuesday’s Florida primary, which he won, and repeated it at the debate. But Romney has persistently said he does not support a timetable for withdrawal.

“I think he took a sharp detour off the straight-talk express by stooping to the attack he did, and then of course by him continuing to say it is a very strange thing. And as I mentioned last night, every independent voice that I’ve seen has pointed out that what he’s done is disingenuous and not honorable,” Romney said in Long Beach, Calif., Thursday.

“Had he a question about this he could have raised it any time between April and now, but to raise it outside a debate and to do it … to people in Florida was something reminiscent of the Nixon era and I don’t think I want to see our party go back to that kind of campaigning. “

Romney is locked in a taut contest with McCain, and is trying to derail the Arizona senator’s mounting momentum off his wins in Florida, South Carolina and New Hampshire.

Romney made a goof. To disparage McCain by using Nixon's name as a pejorative in a GOP primary was terminally 'dumb'. Notwithstanding the degree to which Nixon is reviled by some in the FR (and in this thread), a far greater proportion in the GOP rank-and-file still think well of Nixon -- and will not be pleased to hear Romney take his name in vain. In an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll the U.S. public was surveyed with respect to the presidential career of their 37th U.S. President (Nixon) by asking "When you think back to the high and low points of his term in office, do you think, on the whole, that it was good for America or bad for America that Richard Nixon served as President? Fully 73% replied that it had been good, which is an even higher percentage than the landslide vote (61%) Nixon received in the 1972 presidential election, in which he won by a larger margin (about 18 million votes) than the leader of one major party ever defeated a leader of the other major party in the history of the Republic.

As I recall, Arnold dared to mention Nixon for the first time since Nixon resigned in 1974 at the GOP Convention in 2004. It got the loudest cheer of anything Arnold said. I can understand why Mitt has a 'thing' about Nixon: Nixon easily defeated Romney's father in the 1968 runup to the GOP nomination and found him to be an utter bore in cabinet meetings. I think Mitt's dad had one hell of a time getting through his 'higher' education and it looks as if Mitt could profit by returning to school to learn a little more about Politics 101. He probably lost as many voters by that slam at Nixon as he will gain from millions of dollars of advertising he's about to launch. Just dumb. And I was one of those who, independently of all other factors, including McCain, had been supportive of Romney's candidacy, but to make such a dumb political move means he'd likely have screwed up before long, even if he had won the nomination.

Doesn't Mitt know that Nixon still had the rank-and-file support of most of the GOP on the day he resigned? It was only the 'loudness' of Nixon's GOP opponents (both in the press and in Congress)(e.g. the Buckley brothers, Wm. and Jim, Goldwater etc.) who obscured this truth.

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