According to Lori Robertson and Jess Henig of factcheck.org:
On the eve of the crucial Florida GOP primary, John McCain is attacking Mitt Romney with some out-of-context or misleading statements on radio and the Internet.
Marc Ambinder questions whether some of McCain’s last-minute robocalls are gay-baiting.
At Captain’s Quarters, Cap’n Ed correctly notes that “distortions and context shifts form the bread and butter of (political) advertising,” and notes that the ads identified by the factcheck’ers at least focus on issues, rather than the identity politics found in the Democratic campaign. I would add that Romney has done his share (or more) of attack ads.
Nevertheless, McCain does promote himself as the straight-talking, campaign-finance reforming, good government candidate. He is the candidate who has proclaimed that “negative campaigns don’t work” in Iowa and New Hampshire — a claim he reportedly repeated in Florida.ÂÂ
McCain has to expect that people will notice, because of the… you know.
Update: I just saw McCain on television, complaining that Romney is the only candidate who runs attack ads against his rivals when they move up in the polls.  Mr. Straight. Talk.
Prebuttal for the comments: I have twice mentioned that voters see Romney as a phony and a “luxury car salesman.” The first time I did so, I also quoted a Pew Poll finding that 20% of Republicans would never vote for Romney, as opposed to only 9% who would never vote for McCain. I have jokingly compared Romney to the Werewolves of London. And on none of these occasions did Mittheads blow a gasket.
McCain being misleading within 60 days of an election???
Wow, I sure didn’t see that coming.
No!
Out-of-context and misleading statements? In an election?
Gosh, whoever heard of such a thing?
The polls deeming Romney as beyond the pale come from…where?
The same media that is cool with McCain being the NYT- endorsed Republican candidate. Which means to me that they see Romney as the threat to beat.
MSM covers Republican campaigns in order to further their own agenda. They can smell the Fairness Doctrine- and they would probably get it(and so much more) even if McCain went off script and actually won.
ROMNEY is the threat.
Who’da thunk it?
Gay baiting? Only if you are straining to find a way to inject that into the race …
For the record, I share Ambinder’s skepticism as to whether that robocall is gay-baiting. It is an attack, however, hence its inclusion here.
Sooner or later someone is going to say something good about an opponent. Sooner or later, the sun will cease to shine. I’ll let you decide which will happen first.
I believe the ‘guy’ making the bashing claim was rather intimately involved in the Foley matter. If one were of a suspicious nature (rather than being charmingly trusting) one might think that ground is being laid for the outing of a close McCain associate, confidante, supporter. Golly, who among those close to McCain is walking around wearing Guccis with helium filled insoles?
I have twice in the last two days heard either McCain or one of his spokespersons say that Romney supports gay marriage and, of course, is pro-abortion. If memory serves, wasn’t it Romney who was pushing for an anti-gay marriage amendment be placed on the Mass. ballot since the legislature was refusing to vote on the issue?
And as far as his pro-life stance, I think Romney is like many of us of his generation. When Roe was passed, we were already married and having children and really didn’t pay that much attention to Roe since it didn’t apply to us. We could not conceive at that time that over 40 million babies would end up murdered in order to save the handful of women who sought “backroom” abortions from those “dirty coat hangers” we constantly heard about and we never imagined in our wildest dreams that married women would have abortions to limit the size of a family or to avoid sagging breasts and stretch marks. I had my own epiphany on the subject when technology advanced to the point where real time images of the baby in the womb became possible and that blob of protoplasm became a fully formed child when only a couple of months along in the pregnancy. And at the same time, the actual abortion methods of tearing this child from limb to limb or exploding his or her skull were shown in graphic representation. It forced many of us to rethink our cavalier positions of the previous decade and a half. Whereas my epiphany came at a time where I was facing a budding teenage daughter’s sexuality, Romney says he “changed” his position after being faced with having to make decisions on government legislation. Who cares why? He has reached the right conclusion. His original semi-opposition was based on emotion over a relative’s bad experience and ignorance about the subject. Romney does not strike me as one who once he looks into an issue, researches it and comes to a decision, is likely to do an about face. Throw in his religious convictions and the idea that Mitt Romney would either favor abortion-on-demand or gay marriage is ludicrous at this point. McCain is a sleaze and a liar. And what is that snide giggle he has taken to doing in the last couple of days?
Close. It was on the ballot, and the result was overwhelmingly against but it wasn’t binding. It required the Legislature to vote on the matter, which they were refusing to do. Mitt was pushing the Legislature to do their Constitutional duty while they were abdicating. Governor-elect Deval Patrick waged an unprecedented vote buying campaign, and the vote went his way.
If I were a whore like John “Proud to be a Conservative Republican” McCain I don’t think I would be as nonchalant about it. A proud and strident whore I would be I think. It’s sort of an in for a penny thing.
Wait, it’s Massachusetts. What the hell was I thinking?
McCain blithering about his tapcodes about Reagan, that’s just a brilliant metaphor really. Fucking whore.
as your Resident Evilcon…i feel obligated to point out that the 800 pound gorilla in the room continues to be mormon. ‘membah when the dems were accused of refraining from attackin Hucks religion [until post nomination that is] in hopes that he wud become the [nonelectable] repub candidate?
Mitt is even moreso unelectable.
a prosective POTUS that believes that dead jews can be baptized into mormonism and native americans are the lost tribe of Israel is highly vulnerable to to being portrayed as a non-rational actor on MENA issues. if mitt gets the nod we will learn more about mormonism than we ever wanted to know.