(AP, 2/5/08) - McCain had eased up on his criticism of the former Massachusetts governor since winning the primary in Florida last week and had begun acting like a general election candidate, focusing his harsh rhetoric on Democratic rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.
But with hours to go before voting began in more than 20 states from coast to coast, McCain unloaded on Romney.
The 30-second ad airing on national cable television shows Romney distancing himself from Ronald Reagan, patron saint of modern conservatism, in a 1994 debate when he was challenging Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts.
"Look, I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush. I'm not trying to return to Reagan-Bush," Romney says in the ad footage. An announcer then intones, "If we can't trust Mitt Romney on Ronald Reagan, how can we trust him to lead America?"
McCain also ratcheted up the rhetoric during an interview with the CBS Evening News. Asked about his opponents' weaknesses, the Arizona senator reverted to the caricature of Romney as a flip-flopper. "He's had literally at least two positions on every major issue," McCain said.
McInsane becoming desperate. He is an evil man.
That's...pretty damned weak stuff coming from someone who spent the Reagan years getting involved with the Keating Five scandal.
Do you have a source and link for this article you have posted in your first response?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:
I WILL vote for McCain when the “killer bees” finally get here.
John! That's not as bad as cozying up to Teddy in 2004!!!
IMO, if we looked back, I’ll bet ole John McCain was giving Reagon some fits too. I’ll give that a look in the morning, if I can get the time.
If McCain wins the nomination, I'll vote Democrat just to help put a stake in the heart of this phony republican.
Anytime someone uses 'literally' in a sentence, that is a clue they are exaggerating. But this means that at least Romney has been right half of the time. McCain sticks the wrong position tenaciously and calls anyone, who disagrees a racist, a bigot, or something else. McCain is 72 years old, he can not accept an honest disagreement. Every disagreement to McCain is a personal, unfair attack.
For this reason alone, McCain's temperament is unsuited to be President.
Whereas McCain was for Reagan before he was against him.
Good God, this is so Clintonian is scary.
""His first budget, presented under a cloud of a $2 billion deficit, balanced the budget with some spending cuts,
but a $500 million increase in various fees was the largest component of the budget fix."
Cato Institute annual Fiscal Policy Report Card - America's Governors, 2004.
Romney was rated a "C" overall by Cato.
As U.S. real output grew 13 percent between 2002 and 2006, Massachusetts trailed at 9 percent.
* Manufacturing employment fell 7 percent nationwide those years, but sank 14 percent under Romney, placing Massachusetts 48th among the states.
* Between fall 2003 and autumn 2006, U.S. job growth averaged 5.4 percent, nearly three times Massachusetts' anemic 1.9 percent pace.
* While 8 million Americans over age 16 found work between 2002 and 2006, the number of employed Massachusetts residents actually declined by 8,500 during those years.
"Massachusetts was the only state to have failed to post any gain in its pool of employed residents," professors Sum and McLaughlin concluded.
In an April 2003 meeting with the Massachusetts congressional delegation in Washington, Romney failed to endorse President Bush's $726 billion tax-cut proposal.
As Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., told the Boston Globe after the powwow: "Here you have a freshman governor refusing to endorse a tax cut presented by a Republican President at the height of his wartime popularity." As for the anti-tax pledge, a Romney spokesman dismissed it as "government by gimmickry."
ALSO
The Mass. taxpayer's cost of Romney's HillaryCARE=RomneyCARE1 has just surged.
Romney's scheme is sending Massachusetts toward bankruptcy.
Romney's scheme is now costing the MASS taxpayer an extra, unaccounted for,
loss of 1.4 billion dollars per year. Per year. And growing.
Subsidized care plan's cost to double (Uh, oh...bad news for Romney's Healthcare plan)
The difference between McCain and Romney is Romney WAS a liberal who has moved steadily to the right.
McCain was a conservative who has drifted steadily tot he left - so far that he is indistinguishable from a Democrat.
Now he wants us to believe he is still a Republican.
Guess the statute of limitations has run out.
