By Perry Bacon Jr.
MIAMI -- A day after Sen. John McCain blasted his position on Iraq, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney changed the subject to his favorite issue, the economy. Romney suggested a bill to combat global warming McCain has authored would lead to increases in prices for gas, repeated criticisms of McCain's votes against tax cuts the Bush administration advocated in 2001 and 2003 and suggested McCain did not understand the economy as well as the Romney, who ran a Boston venture capital firm before entering politics.

"I simply don't think the people of Florida are going to say the nominee of our party ought to be a person who on more than one occasion has expressed a lack of understanding of our economy," Romney said at a press conference following a rally at community center in a Cuban area here where the usually buttoned-down candidate wore an untucked Guayabera, a kind of shirt popular in Latin America.

Romney added, "I understand he's anxious to try and see if he can change the topic away from the economy. I'm going to remind him of his statements time and again about his lack of understanding of the economy."

Romney has, in recent days, repeatedly slammed McCain for a remark the Arizona senator made in 2005 that "I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated." Romney also suggested a bill that McCain has worked on with Senator Joe Lieberman which would set up a system of reducing carbon emissions by allowing companies to trade, save, and borrow emissions credits would actually raise the price of gas by as much as 50 cents per gallon. The candidate did not detail exactly how this increase in gas prices would happen through the McCain bill, and the Senator's aides dismissed the charge.

Romney targeted McCain in what has become a two-man race between candidates who share little fondness for each other. But they are focusing on substantive differences. McCain yesterday likened Romney's views on Iraq to those of the Democrats, recycling a months-old quote to suggest Romney favored a speedy withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Romney has long said he does favor an immediate withdrawal of troops, although he was not the same vocal advocate of the troop surge that McCain was.

Romney and McCain, while taking on each directly, are in some ways running very different campaigns in which the winner could be determined by the relative strength of two other GOP candidates, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. While touting his views on the economy, Romney is also running ads casting himself as the candidate of "conservative change" and noting he is a candidate who unites the "Reagan coalition" of economic, social and foreign policy conservatives. If Huckabee, who has been embraced by social conservatives, continues to drop in polls here, that support could head to Romney, who has performed well among conservatives and Republicans in the early voting states.

McCain, focused on foreign policy issues, won contests in New Hampshire and South Carolina on the strength of the kind of moderate Republicans that the fading Giuliani is also wooing.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trai ... eco_1.html