LAND O’ LAKES, Fla. %26#151; With Florida’s GOP primary looming on Tuesday, the competition between front-runners Mitt Romney and John McCain intensified Saturday as Romney continued to push his economic plan while McCain went back to talking about Iraq.
In his quest to get Florida’s 57 Republican delegates, Romney took his “Economic Turnaround” tour to three businesses and a living room to explain how he wants to get the economy back on track. Meanwhile McCain, a U.S. senator from Arizona, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee also held events in the state.
McCain, a Vietnam veteran and former prisoner of war playing to his military experience, accused Romney of wanting to withdraw troops from Iraq %26#151; which Romney immediately denied.
McCain said, “If we surrender and wave a white flag, like Senator Clinton wants to do, and withdraw, as Governor Romney wanted to do, then there will be chaos, genocide, and the cost of American blood and treasure would be dramatically higher.”
Romney called McCain’s statement “dishonest” and asked for an apology.
“It’s fine for him to express his view on different topics, and I know he’s trying desperately to change the topic from the economy and trying to get back to Iraq. But to say something that’s not accurate is simply wrong, and he knows better,” Romney said, standing on the lawn of the Guenette family’s home in Land O’ Lakes.
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In a discussion staged by the campaign, Romney sat down in the Guenettes’ living room to talk about how his economic plan would help middle-class families. Lenny and Marcy Guenette have two sons, ages 9 and 5, and two daughters, ages 10 and 7. Lenny Guenette works for a computer hardware company and Marcy Guenette works part time at home doing legal transcription. They make a combined income of $90,000 a year and are currently renting their house, the campaign said.
The couple said rising gas prices have forced them to cut back on savings, including putting money into college funds for their children. Romney said that if elected, his idea of eliminating taxes on savings for those making under $200,000 a year would help them. Romney also used the opportunity to continue to push for innovation, saying newer, more fuel-efficient and electric cars coming out of Michigan could help lower their gas bills in the future.
Romney won the Michigan primary earlier this month, also by focusing on the economy and saying he wanted to rejuvenate the state’s auto industry. Romney used Saturday’s sit-down to discuss the housing market, health-care costs and retirement plans.
The photo-op at the Guenette house came between stops at factories, where Romney touted his plan to give businesses a bigger tax break to make investments for such things as new machines or updated technology. He continued to play up his status as a Washington outsider and businessman, tying McCain’s long tenure in the Senate to his overall “Washington is broken” theme.
“I don’t think somebody from the inside is going to be able to turn Washington inside out,” Romney told an audience at ValPak, a direct-mail company in St. Petersburg.
After touring the company’s coupon-printing factory, Romney said that if the economy continues to go south, people will cut back on their marketing, meaning fewer coupons, and consumers will buy less.
Later in Lakeland, Romney said at the Citrus Mutual Headquarters, a growers association, that fixing the economy would put more money in consumers’ pockets “so they can buy more Florida orange juice.”
Outside the Opinicus Corp. in Lutz, where Romney spoke to a crowd of supporters and tried out a flight simulator the company builds, he said his tax breaks would allow other companies to invest in what they make, which would call for more simulators and which would lead to more jobs.
“I know what it is like to work in the real economy,” Romney said.
His business background is resonating with supporters in Florida.
“Out of all the candidates that are out there, both Republican and Democrat, he just seems more presidential, he seems to command the issues, especially on the economy being a part of the private sector and his years in that business. I think it is kind of a given for me,” said Jose Casas of St. Cloud, Fla., who had Romney autograph a shirt he was wearing.
“The federal government is gargantuan compared to a private business, but the principles are the same in that you can’t overspend, basically,” Casas said. “I think a man like Mitt Romney knows business and how businesses run. I think he can bring those principles into the government and rein in the spending that we need to and get this economy started again.”
Meanwhile, the McCain campaign continued to send out statements about Romney’s position on the Iraq war.
“The only people who are owed an apology are the men and women fighting for our country in Iraq, who have a right to expect their leaders to stand by them and their mission, not just when it is easy, but when it matters most %26#151; when it is hard,” McCain said. “I understand if Governor Romney has changed his mind given the obvious success of the surge. But the fact is, like on so many other issues, Governor Romney has hedged, equivocated, ducked and reversed himself.”
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