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John McCain hits the campaign trail with fellow Sens. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., and Mel Martinez, R-Fla.

With less than 24 hours until primary polls open in Florida, top GOP rivals John McCain and Mitt Romney continued a barrage of attacks on each other, freely using the “L”-word to bash one another.

Romney hammered hard on a climate-change bill that McCain has supported with his friend and colleague, Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman, saying the legislation will result in a tax increase. He also went after McCain for the Arizona senator’s role in campaign finance bill and the failed immigration reform bills.

“If you ask people, ‘Look at the three things Senator McCain has done as a senator,’ if you want that kind of a liberal Democratic course as president, then you can vote for him,” Romney told campaign workers. “But those three pieces of legislation, those aren’t conservative, those aren’t Republican, those are not the kind of leadership that we need as we go forward.”

In response, McCain pointed to flip-flopping and tax-raising on Romney’s behalf, accusing the former Massachusetts governor of “wholesale deception of voters. On every one of the issues he has attacked us on, Mitt Romney was for it before he was against it.”

He added, “The truth is, Mitt Romney was a liberal governor of Massachusetts who raised taxes, imposed with Ted Kennedy a big government mandate health care plan that is now a quarter of a billion dollars in the red, and managed his state’s economy incompetently, leaving Massachusetts with less job growth than 46 other states.”

McCain later told a Jacksonville audience that Romney has been “entirely consistent. He’s consistently taken at least two sides of every issue, sometimes more than two.”

The two are also locked in an all-out advertising blitz that has reached fever pace. But McCain’s leaner campaign hasn’t run nearly as many ads in total in Florida, in comparison to his better-funded rivals Romney and Rudy Giuliani. Since last March, McCain has run only 470 TV ads, while Romney — who tops the list of GOP candidates — has flooded the market with 4,475 ads. Giuliani has purchased 3,067 advertising units through Jan. 22, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

The exchange reflected the stakes in Tuesday’s contest, a prelude to a virtual nationwide primary on Feb. 5.

The polls show McCain and Romney in a state race that is too close to call.

McCain collected endorsements in recent days from Florida’s top two Republican elected officials, Sen. Mel Martinez and Gov. Charlie Crist, as well as from a slew of Florida newspapers. The former Vietnam prisoner of war also has universal name recognition, as well as ownership of an issue important to the large number of veterans and active military in the state, national security.

But Romney has a get-out-the-vote effort in the state that has been at work on early voters as well as those seeking to cast absentee ballots.

A former businessman, he has campaigned as the man with the credentials to shore up the economy, a counter to McCain’s national security credentials.

Giuliani and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee are also on the ballot, but recent surveys show them several points behind the front-runners.

Giuliani declined to join the name-calling melee.

“My opponents are fighting each other, calling each other names. Let them do that. We’re not going to call anybody names. I want Florida to send a message that the kind of candidate you want and the kind of president you want is one that can remain focused on positive goals,” Giuliani told an audience in Sanford, Fla.

McCain is expected to do well in areas with a strong military presence — Pensacola, Jacksonville and Tampa. He’s also hoping for a strong turnout in Miami, with its Cuban-American population, and Orlando, a melting pot with a strong Puerto Rican community.

Romney is fighting for the southwest part of the state around Fort Myers and Sarasota; an area much like the Midwest, where he was raised. Another likely stronghold for him, Palm Beach and Broward County, home to many Northeastern transplants.

Up for grabs is the corridor between Tampa and Daytona Beach along Interstate 4, a swing part of the state that has seen much growth and is home to roughly two-thirds of the Republican primary vote.

Romney was in West Palm Beach while McCain was in Jacksonville as they set out on their final full day of Florida campaigning.

Addressing phone bank workers who came out to the airport to see him off on a state fly-around, Romney said three key bills that McCain pushed in Congress steered the country on “a liberal Democrat course.”

Romney said the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance law “hit the First Amendment” with its controls over advertising spending.

He labeled last year’s failed McCain-Kennedy immigration bill “the amnesty bill” because it would have allowed illegal immigrants to remain in the country indefinitely. Romney also said a 2003 McCain-Lieberman energy cap-and-trade bill would have increased energy costs for the average Florida family of four by $1,000.

He also drew chuckles from his audience when he recalled talk during the 2004 campaign that McCain was teaming up with Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democratic presidential nominee, on the opposing party’s ticket.

“Had someone asked me that question, there would not have been a nanosecond of thought about it; it would have been an immediate laugh,” Romney said. “And, of course, if someone asked him if he would consider me as a running mate, he would have also laughed immediately.”

During a news conference, Romney noted Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, who has drawn large crowds in his bid for the presidency.

Asked how he would counter Obama if he were the nominee, Romney said, “The nation will divide in two parts — politically, at least.”

He said of his own supporters: “Some may be less demonstrative in how they show their support for that vision, but I believe fundamentally that America is not interested in following a socialistic-style, government-run nation.”

Emphasizing his signature issue, McCain toured the grounds of Atlantic Machine, which builds Navy ships and commercial vessels, before holding a roundtable in one of the company’s warehouses with national security experts, including Former CIA Director Jim Woolsey and former Veterans Affairs Secretary Tony Principi.

In his statement issued before the event, McCain likened Romney to Kerry over the weekend in a Web ad that superimposed the face of the former governor on an image of the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate windsurfing. The campaign also acknowledged that it has been running a radio ad statewide in Florida since Friday that assails Romney’s record.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 28th, 2008 at 3:31 pm and is filed under Florida, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.