McCain, Romney bash each other in Florida

This is from MSNBC News:

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Mitt Romney and John McCain accused each other Monday of harboring liberal tendencies, a charge bordering on blasphemy in the increasingly caustic campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

Romney struck first on the day before the winner-take-all Florida primary. He attacked the Arizona senator for his legislation reducing the role of money in politics, for his position on immigration and for his support of an energy bill that Romney said would have driven up consumer costs.

"If you ask people, 'Look at the three things Senator McCain has done as a senator,' if you want that kind of a liberal Democrat 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."

McCain answered swiftly in a statement to The Associated Press. He accused the former Massachusetts senator 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."

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

The fun thing about this race is that both John McCain and Mitt Romney are going all out in Florida, trying to taint the other as the more liberal candidate. So far, both candidates are tied in the Florida race:

Graph showing Florida GOP presidential poll results. From Pollster.com

What is even more fun is that the attack ads are really getting nasty between McCain and Romney. Here is McCain's ad of Romney "Mittsurfing." From Youtube:



While Romney is responding with this add, calling McCain the Democrats' favorite Republican:



And tomorrow, Florida Republicans will get to decide between Mittsurfer, and the Democrats' Favorite Republican.

Or maybe they will decide to vote for this guy: