Was McCain too nice to Lynch?

by Sarah Liebowitz Monitor staff
October 17. 2007 12:40AM
F irst, Mitt Romney was sparring with Rudy Giuliani about taxes and spending in New Hampshire. This week, Romney is in a tiff with John McCain about, of all things, New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch. Lynch made an appearance last weekend at a McCain campaign stop in Hopkinton, the governor's hometown, and the two men said nice things about each other. "Thank you for most of all the way that you have governed the state, in a bipartisan fashion," McCain told Lynch. Lynch returned the favor. "I have enormous respect and admiration for Sen. McCain and all he's done for all of us all over the country if not all over the world," the governor said. The Romney campaign seized on the Lynch-friendly remarks - which came a day after McCain said some not-so-friendly things about Romney - to question McCain's conservative bona fides. - Only John McCain would criticize a fellow Republican one day and then campaign with a Democrat the next," Jim Merrill, Romney's state director, said in a statement. "At a town hall meeting yesterday, McCain stood alongside the Democrat governor of New Hampshire, John Lynch, and said 'America needs more of what you've done here in the State of New Hampshire.' " McCain campaign chairman Peter Spaulding retorted that his candidate learned the value of bipartisanship from Ronald Reagan. "Obviously, Mitt Romney never learned that lesson because he admitted he was never part of the Reagan Revolution, going so far as to reject the Reagan legacy and run to the left of Ted Kennedy," Spaulding said. "It is beyond the pale that Mitt Romney would attack a fellow Republican for showing common decency and respect for the sitting governor of the state in which he is campaigning." It's hard to say if McCain or Romney got the best of this one. An anti-Lynch message is a hard sell in this state, but it might work with the hard-core conservatives Romney is counting on as a primary constituency. But if McCain can persuade independents to take Republican ballots, a nonpartisan, pro-Lynch message certainly can't hurt. Giuliani may have the most to gain from this particular slugfest, as two candidates who hope for breakout moments in New Hampshire tear each other up.