Republican candidates seeking the US presidency have spent months pitching glossy versions of themselves to voters, but as they entered two events in Florida yesterday they wanted to make sure that voters knew the full story about their rivals’ records.
Ahead of an afternoon candidate forum and an evening debate in the swing state, advisers telegraphed the criticism that each campaign was likely to use. As most of the candidates were planning a two-day trip to the hard-fought state, they were also ramping up their rhetoric against each other to discount their rivals’ accomplishments.
With five months remaining until the first nominating contests, time is running short for some of the candidates trying to break free of the pack. Their camps descended on senior citizen-rich Florida this week, ready with lines sharpened for fellow Republicans more than their once-favorite target, US President Barack Obama.
“I’ve forgotten more about Israel than Rick Perry knows about Israel,” former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum told reporters in Washington, trying to rap his rival’s foreign policy speech.
Texas added jobs during the economic recession under Governor Rick Perry’s leadership, he said, but unemployment went up last month and is at its highest level since 1987, rival Mitt Romney said.
Romney filled in Massachusetts’ US$3 billion budget hole without raising taxes as governor, yet the state trailed 46 others in job creation, Perry shot back.
Perry’s campaign did not address Romney’s questions and instead Ray Sullivan, its chief spokesman, swiped at a rival who “seems to forget he’s a Republican.”
With Romney and Perry elbowing each other for front-runner status — while conservative, Tea Party darling Michele Bachmann tries to wedge herself into the top tier — the presidential contenders scheduled a forum on their faith and a head-to-head debate for yesterday.
They are also scheduled to make appearances at a conservative conference today and some are expected to visit a nonbinding test vote of the party faithful tomorrow.
An independent pro-Bachmann group was ready to start airing advertisements in Iowa aimed at Perry.
The ad follows Bachmann’s criticism of Perry’s record in Texas and echoes conservatives’ criticism of vaccines he mandated and Ron Paul of Texas, a favorite of the party’s libertarian wing, renewed his criticism of Perry as a typical politician.
“He knows what people are thinking about, that’s how politicians operate,” Paul told reporters on Wednesday before heading to Florida.
Also set to join the debate: Georgia businessman Herman Cain, former House speaker Newt Gingrich, former Utah governor Jon Huntsman and former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson.
However, the key rivalry to watch is between Perry and Romney, a pair of political front-runners who have already let the criticism fly.
A Romney spokeswoman called Perry “a career politician.” A Perry aide shot back that Romney has been campaigning full time for nearly five years.
Romney has spent years building an organization and has aggressively worked to raise money. Perry, who entered the campaign just last month, quickly jumped to the lead in national polls.
During their last debate, the two directly confronted each other on their records and the questions become more pointed in the days following.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
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