FORT MYERS, Fla. — With polls showing a squeaker of a race in the biggest state yet to vote, John McCain on Saturday scored a major campaign coup — the endorsement of Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, one of the most popular political figures in the state.
The backing from the governor, who has an approval rating that hovers near 70 percent, could prove to be a crucial factor in persuading Republicans who have yet to make up their minds to vote for McCain, who polls show is tied for first with Mitt Romney.
“He’s a great American patriot. He’s a true American hero,” Crist said of McCain as the two appeared together on stage at a Republican dinner in St. Petersburg. “He’s a great friend and will do a great job for the United States.” The endorsement is the second coup for McCain — he gained Sen. Mel Martinez’s backing Friday — and it capped a day of bitter exchanges between McCain and Romney, who are tied in most polls in Florida.
The two Republican front-runners bickered over the Iraq war Saturday.
McCain sought to cast Romney as a war-quitter who would let al-Qaeda win in Iraq. Romney charged his rival with being “dishonest” and accused him of trying to shift the focus of the campaign because he can’t win on the economy. Neither man would back off or apologize.
Meantime, Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee, trailing in most polls, played it nice in Central Florida.
The sharp exchange between Romney and McCain came on the second-to-last day of early voting in Florida and highlighted the high stakes of the state’s Republican election. It’s the biggest of the early-state votes, a winner-take-all contest and one that could provide crucial momentum before the Feb. 5 multi-state primary. It’s also a closed primary, open only to Republicans — and not to the independents that helped McCain regain momentum with wins in New Hampshire and South Carolina.
The closed primary means it’s a more conservative contest than in those states, and with McCain at odds with some in his party for his positions on immigration and stem-cell research, he sought to underscore his hawkish stance on the Iraq war.
“If we surrender and wave a white flag, like Sen. Clinton wants to do, and withdraw, as Gov. Romney wanted to do, then there will be chaos, genocide, and the cost of American blood and treasure would be dramatically higher,” McCain said in Fort Myers. “Now, one of my opponents wanted to set a date for withdrawal that would have meant disaster.”
But Romney pointed out he never sought a specific date for withdrawal. And McCain’s campaign couldn’t provide the “date” that he claimed Romney wanted for withdrawal.
