Romney paints McCain as liberal

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Sen. John McCain is not a true Republican and he does not understand the economy while Mitt Romney is a "flip-flopper" who can not keep his facts straight.

Welcome to the world of dueling campaign rhetoric in the midst of the tightly contested winner-take-all Florida Republican primary.

It's getting testy on the campaign trail as Romney McCain increasingly attack each other a day before Florida voters go to the polls.

At stake are 57 Republican delegates as well as a first place finish that could give the winner a boost the week before Super

Duper Tuesday on Feb. 5, when more than 20 states hold primary elections or caucuses for one or both major political parties.

Romney used a sunrise press conference at a Texaco station in West Palm Beach as the backdrop for his continue criticism of McCain. His go-to example was the McCain-Lieberman climate change bill, which Romney says will increase gas and electricity prices to the tune

of $1,000 per year for a Floridian family of four.

"What's particularly troubling about the bill is that the affect on the global environment would be negligible," Romney said. "The bill does not require other nations to participate."

Romney said that missing requirement would merely force high emitting industries to leavethe United States to go to countries with lower requirements — taking their jobs with them.

"As someone who has spent his life in business, I know how business people think, and they will follow the course of least resistance," Romney said. "If we put a huge burden on our industries and homeowners, the industries will move to places where those burdens don't exist."

Romney would keep pounding home his point at airport hangers stops across the state — that McCain-Lieberman and two other McCain'-sponsored bills illustrate how he is the wrong choice for Florida and the nation.

"If somebody wants to know where he would lead the country they simply need to look at the three pieces of legislation with his name at the top," Romney said.

He told crowds that the McCain-Feingold law on campaign finance "has not reduced the influence of money and politics, it's made it worse." And he lambasted the McCain-Kennedy proposal on immigration as an "amnesty bill."