Romney accuses McCain of "dirty tricks"
By Steve Holland and Claudia ParsonsThu Jan 31, 11:26 AM ET
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney angrily accused his rival John McCain on Wednesday of "dirty tricks" for saying he had backed a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.
"It's offensive to me that someone would suggest that I have," Romney said.
Simmering tensions from the campaign for Florida, where McCain outdueled Romney to win the state's Republican nomination contest on Tuesday and solidify his front-runner status, spilled over into a crucial debate in California.
Romney, a former Massachusetts governor now fighting for his political life with more than 20 states to hold their nominating votes on "Super Tuesday" next week, accused McCain of lying about his Iraq record.
Those races could well determine the Republican Party's choice for the November 4 election against a Democratic candidate to succeed President George W. Bush.
Gone from the debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library was former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who quit the race after a dismal finish in Florida and endorsed McCain.
Romney's job was to try to stop the momentum of McCain, who leads opinion polls in some of the key "Super Tuesday" prizes -- California, New York and New Jersey. But Romney looked frustrated and defensive at times and it was unclear how much headway he had made.
Romney accused McCain of holding liberal positions out of step with mainstream Republicans. In response, McCain said Romney raised taxes as governor of Massachusetts and suggested he had changed his position on important issues.
Romney said he "absolutely, unequivocally" had never supported setting a timetable for withdrawing from Iraq -- a proposition that was a live item for debate a year ago before a U.S. troop build-up began to stabilize parts of the country.
"And by the way, raising it a few days before the Florida primary, when there was very little time for me to correct the record ... falls into the kind of dirty tricks that I think Ronald Reagan would've found reprehensible," a tense Romney said, with McCain sitting at his side.
OTHER REPUBLICANS COMPLAIN
McCain, an Arizona senator who backed the Iraq build-up even though it was unpopular, said Romney was asked last year whether the troop "surge" was a good idea and had said: "We don't want them to lay in the weeds until we leave..."
McCain said he took that to mean Romney backed a timetable for a pullout, prompting an angry denial.
"How is it you are the expert on my position when my position has been very clear?" Romney demanded, saying McCain had multiple chances to bring the issue up during the campaign but had done it only to try to damage him in Florida.
The exchange was so heated at the CNN/Los Angeles Times/Politico debate that the other Republican contenders, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Texas Rep. Ron Paul, complained.
Paul said McCain and Romney were engaged in "silly arguments about who said what, when."
Romney said McCain's record on illegal immigration, global warming and tax cuts put him "outside the mainstream of American conservative thought."
Romney also poked at McCain for his endorsement last week by The New York Times.
"Let me note if you get endorsed by The New York Times you're probably not a conservative," Romney said.
McCain, who won the contests in South Carolina and New Hampshire before taking Florida, shot back that he had been endorsed by two of Romney's hometown newspapers in Boston and said Romney had his own liberal tendencies.
"I heard Gov. Romney describe his record, as I understand it his record was he raised taxes by $730 million -- he called them fees. I'm sure the people that had to pay it, whether they called them bananas, they still had to pay $730 million extra," McCain said.
"I'm proud of my conservative record. It's one of reaching across the aisle to get things done."
(Editing by John O'Callaghan)
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BOSTON - Republican campaign dropout Mitt Romney endorsed John McCain for the party's presidential nomination and asked his national convention delegates to swing behind the likely nominee.
"Even when the contest was close and our disagreements were debated, the caliber of the man was apparent," the former Massachusetts governor said, standing alongside his one-time rival at his now-defunct campaign's headquarters.
Romney collected 280 delegates during his run through the early primaries and caucuses, enough to move McCain close to the total of 1,191 needed to clinch the nomination a full nine months before the November general election.
The officials who disclosed Romney's plans did so on condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting a formal announcement later in the day. McCain was campaigning in Vermont and Rhode Island, and added a flight to Boston to appear with Romney to accept the endorsement at his waterfront campaign headquarters.
McCain effectively sealed the nomination last week when Romney withdrew from the race; only former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and libertarian-leaning Texas Rep. Ron Paul remain. Both lag McCain in delegates to the Republican nominating convention this summer.
Romney's nod of support capped a bitter yearlong rivalry between the two men over the party's nomination. Romney criticized McCain in television ads in New Hampshire, and both candidates targeted each other almost daily during campaign events and debates. Neither is especially fond of the other.
Over the past year, Romney cast McCain as outside of the Republican conservative mainstream and a Washington insider who contributed to the problems plaguing a broken system. McCain, in turn, argued that Romney's equivocations and reversals on several issues indicated a willingness to change his positions to fit his political goals.
The clash effectively ended on Feb. 5, when McCain won a string of big-state "Super Tuesday" primaries from coast to coast.
Officials said the former Massachusetts governor made his decision to back McCain earlier in the day, citing a desire to help the Arizona senator wrap up the nomination before too much more time passed and while Democrats still did not have a nominee.
McCain is on a steady march toward amassing the 1,191 delegates he needs, but Huckabee has proven an unexpectedly durable challenger. With a strong appeal to evangelical conservatives, Huckabee defeated McCain in two out of three states that chose delegates last weekend, and ran a far stronger race than expected before losing the Virginia primary on Tuesday.
The senator began the day with 843 delegates, to 242 for Huckabee.
While Romney can ask his delegates to support McCain, he will not be able to simply hand over all 280 delegates. Many are from caucus states that will not select the actual delegates until state conventions this spring. Those delegates will be selected by people who supported Romney in the initial caucuses; the direction they go depends on whether they follow Romney's lead in endorsing McCain.
In other states, the delegates are bound to Romney, and their fate is governed by state party rules. In states like Montana, where Romney has 25 delegates, they would be free to support whomever they choose after Romney releases them.
Six of Romney's delegates are members of the Republican National Committee who continued to endorse him even after he dropped out of the race. These RNC members are free to support any candidate they choose at the convention, and not all of them appeared eager to endorse McCain,
"I will support our nominee," RNC member Diane Adams of Indiana said simply.
Other Romney supporters like Stewart Iverson in Iowa said they will work to rally others behind McCain.
"My main focus is to try to bring Republicans together and say, he may not have been our choice in the caucuses but he is where we are today," Iverson said Wednesday.
In the next round of voting, Louisiana holds a state convention Saturday in which caucus-goers will help decide how 44 of the state's 47 national convention delegates are split. At stake Tuesday in Wisconsin's primary are 40 Republican delegates.
A former Massachusetts governor, Romney suspended his candidacy last week after it became apparent that toppling McCain would be near impossible to gain the delegates needed to defeat McCain.
In a speech before conservative activists in Washington, D.C., Romney acknowledged the difficulty in overtaking McCain. "I must now stand aside, for our party and our country," he said at the time, adding that doing otherwise would increase the chances that Democrats would reclaim the White House.
At the time, Romney did not offer an endorsement, and McCain said he did not seek one when the two spoke by telephone.
Romney was the only one of McCain's main primary opponents who had resisted lining up behind the nominee in waiting; former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and former politician and actor Fred Thompson both have endorsed him.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23168380/
BOSTON, Massachusetts (CNN) -- Former Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney announced Thursday that he is backing Sen. John McCain in his bid for the Oval Office.
Mitt Romney endorses Sen. John McCain during an event in Boston, Massachusetts, Thursday.
"I am honored today to give my full support to Sen. McCain's candidacy for the presidency of the United States," Romney said in a joint news conference with Sen. McCain by his side.
"This is a man capable of leading our country in this dangerous hour."
Romney said he had no doubt McCain should be the next president of the United States.
After his announcement, Romney introduced McCain as a true American hero. 
McCain is CNN's Larry King's guest for the entire hour tonight at 9 p.m. ET.
CNN learned the negotiations that led to the Romney endorsement included a prominent role by John Weaver, who was McCain's top political strategist until he was forced out in a campaign shakeup last summer.
According to several sources familiar with the talks, Weaver got involved with the blessing -- indeed at the urging -- of two current top McCain advisers, Charlie Black and Steve Schmidt.
Both were aware of Weaver's friendship and past working relationship with Romney campaign manager Beth Myers. Weaver and Myers worked together on a Texas campaign and at the Texas Republican party back in the 1980s and have remained good friends
According to sources in both the Romney and McCain camps, Weaver made contact with Myers last week to initiate talks aimed at winning Romney's endorsement and an urging from him that his delegates rally to McCain's candidacy.
A source involved in the internal Romney deliberations confirmed Weaver's role and said the former Massachusetts governor concluded it is time for the party to unite behind McCain and focus on a difficult fall election environment.
One source said Romney wants to endorse McCain "in the interest of healing."
The source said Romney also wants to help McCain move faster to "secure the nomination and unite the party for the general election against the Democrats for November."
Romney will "release" his delegates to McCain, meaning he will encourage them to get behind McCain's candidacy, the source said.
Romney had collected 286 delegates before he suspended his campaign two weeks ago.
Those delegates would give McCain 1,113 total delegates, 78 short of securing the nomination.
Romney last week suspended his campaign, saying it was in his party's best interest.
Continuing his campaign for the White House would "forestall the launch of a national campaign and be making it easier for Sen. [Hillary] Clinton or [Barack] Obama to win."
"In this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror," Romney said, taking a shot at Democrats' stance on the war on terror. "I entered this race because I love America. And because I love America, in this time of war I feel I have to now stand aside for our party and for our country."
Romney announced he was suspending his campaign at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. The crowd there booed when Romney mentioned McCain.
"I disagree with Sen. McCain on a number of issues," Romney said. "But I agree with him on doing whatever it takes to be successful in Iraq, on finding and executing Osama bin Laden, and I agree with him on eliminating al Qaeda and terror worldwide."
According to a senior McCain adviser, McCain called Romney after the announcement and told him he "admired his speech today and that he was a tough competitor."
McCain's rival for the nomination, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, presently has 217 delegates, leaving him hundreds behind McCain, according to CNN estimates.
Some Republicans worry that the longer Huckabee stays in the race, the harder he makes it for McCain to make amends with skeptical conservatives.
Huckabee gave his reaction to CNN's Wolf Blitzer by phone after the announcement. There are "still a lot of Republicans around this country who have yet to vote, many of them who feel like their voices still ... [need] to be heard." Huckabee said. "I owe it the people who got me here."
Huckabee, a former Baptist minister, has vowed to stay in until a candidate gets the 1,191 delegates needed to seal the nomination.
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