New York Daily News, NY
08-06-07
Running from Bush
GOP debaters aim biggest swipes at prez and veep
BY DAVID SALTONSTALL
DAILY NEWS SENIOR CORRESPONDENT
Republican presidential hopefuls John McCain and Rudy Giuliani weren't seeing
eye to eye at yesterday's debate in Des Moines.
The Republican presidential hopefuls faced off in a debate yesterday, but it was
the leaders of their own party - President Bush and Vice President Cheney - who
seemed to take the heaviest hits.
Bush and Cheney turned into the targets of an intraparty firing squad when the
candidates were asked if the President had ceded too much power to his
secretive veep - a notion Sen. John McCain pointedly did not dispute.
"Look, I would be very careful that everyone understood that there's only one
President," said McCain, who for years has sniped at Cheney over missteps in
Iraq.
McCain got some backup from Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, who agreed Bush
had "overrelied" on Cheney, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney
asserted, "I'm not a carbon copy of George Bush."
It was a rare series of public slaps for the President and vice president by
members of their own party, and it underscored the distance many Republicans
are trying to place between themselves and an increasingly unpopular White
House.
"It's not surprising," said Iowa State University Prof. Steffen Schmidt, "since
there is almost no part of the Bush-Cheney record that these candidates can run
on."
The debate - held in Des Moines, capital of Iowa with its first-in-the nation
primary - offered no knockout punches, and most of the candidates sounded
similar notes on taxes, health care and the war.
The day's biggest punching bag was Barack Obama, who at least for now seems
to have vaulted over Hillary Clinton as the Democrat Republicans most love to
hate because of his recent comments on foreign policy.
The Illinois senator said he'd meet unconditionally with dictators from Cuba and
other unfriendly nations, then added last week that he'd unilaterally attack ally
Pakistan if it meant crippling Al Qaeda.
"He's gone from Jane Fonda to Dr. Strangelove in one week," quipped Romney,
who leads the most recent Iowa polls.
Giuliani, the lone pro-choice candidate in the GOP field, seemed to try to
underscore his conservative credentials by going after Democrats on security
and taxes.
He accused Democrats of extreme "political correctness" for not uttering the
words "Islamic extremism," and he dismissed "knee-jerk" liberals for always
wanting to raise taxes to fix problems.
But he also got off what was perhaps the most deft laugh line of the day when
the candidates were asked to describe the most "defining" mistake of their lives
in 30 seconds.
"To have a description of my mistakes in 30 seconds?" said Giuliani, whose
messy personal life is well-known.
"Your father is a priest," he said to ABC moderator George Stephanopoulos. "I'm
going to explain it to your father, not to you, okay?"
"I thought it was a very clever answer," said University of Virginia political
consultant Larry Sabato. "He was saying, 'I'm a sinner, I know it, and, - hint, hint I'm telling my own priest.'"
dsaltonstall@nydailynews.com