McCain vs. Romney on Iraq

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Iraq, Terrorism, Mincing Words

Mitt Romney and John McCain sparred over their stances on the Iraq war at the final Republican primary debate at Ronald Reagan presidential library in Simi Valley, Calif. Wednesday night.

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"He raised taxes by $730 million," McCain alleged. "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."

He also accused Romney of "saddling" Massachusetts with $240 million in debt related to the new health-care system.

The charges forced Romney into a long defense of his gubernatorial record. "Okay, I've got a little work to do," he said. "Let me help you with the facts, Senator."

Romney challenged the studies that McCain based his criticisms on and said he raised fees by $240 million, not $730 million, as part of an effort to close a $3 billion budget shortfall without raising broad-based taxes. And he said he left the state with a surplus, not a deficit.

On health care, he said, "a lot of people talk about health care. I'm the only one who got the job done."

Huckabee, in his rare moments in the spotlight, touted his 10 1/2 years as governor of Arkansas, saying that he balanced the state's budget annually and supported amendments to protect human life and marriage.

"I believe in less government," he said. "I believe in lower taxes, not higher."

When asked whether he would still support expanding the I-95 between Bangor, Maine, and Miami to help stimulate the economy, Huckabee quipped that he would change the location of his proposal now that the presidential primary battleground has shifted.

"I said that when I was in Florida," he said, referring to the location of Tuesday's primary. "Today we might look at a western highway that would go down the California coast."

Paul had few opportunities in the first half of the debate. He answered a question about the state of the nation's economy by saying that "we're not better off, we're worse off," blaming that on an flawed monetary system and a foreign policy that is bankrupting the country.

"The standard of living is going down today," Paul said. "It's going down and the middle class is hurting."

The debate opened with Cooper asking the participants to assess the nation's economic well-being by using the measurement that President Ronald Reagan once did: Are we better off economically than we were eight years ago?

The candidates all struggled to express their sense of gloom about the country without blaming President Bush for his stewardship.

"Let's not blame President Bush on this," Huckabee said.

"This president did pull us out of a deep recession," Romney said.

Later, when asked whether they would have, like Reagan, appointed Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor even though her appointment and later rulings angered abortion opponents, neither Huckabee nor McCain was willing to criticize the late president. Huckabee said it would be "stupid" to question Reagan's decisions as a guest in the Reagan Library, while McCain praised O'Connor and said he would appoint Supreme Court justices like John G. Roberts Jr. and Samuel A. Alito Jr., "who have a proven record of strict interpretation of the Constitution of the United States of America."

Romney, however, made a veiled criticism of Reagan by saying: "I like justices that follow the Constitution, do not make law from the bench. I would have much rather had a justice of that nature."