Romney throwing sharp jabs at McCain

They are disguised as subtle tweaks, brief asides, or polite oh-by-the-way remarks to the media and to Republican audiences. But the zing of Governor Mitt Romney's attacks on Arizona Senator John McCain is unmistakable.

With the 2008 primary season just around the corner, Romney seems to be stepping up his criticism of McCain on everything from taxes to terrorism. And McCain, for the most part, is ignoring it.

Romney's most recent public jab was oblique but hard to miss, and it came in a speech three weeks ago at the annual Republican Governors Association conference in Miami. In the address, Romney praised President Bush for pushing tax cuts despite opposition from fellow Republicans. McCain was initially one of those Republicans, and it is one reason some conservatives do not trust him.

"Our president . . . bucked the doomsayers in the Democratic Party and even some in our own party who were telling him that he couldn't possibly cut taxes," said Romney, who himself has expressed ambivalence about Bush tax cuts in the past. "But he did exactly that. He cut taxes. And why did he do it? Because he was convinced that . . . Americans could do a better job getting this country going than government could ever do. And boy was he right."

The presidential primary battle between Romney and McCain remains mostly below the radar, as the two camps compete fiercely for top-shelf campaign staff, line up major fund-raisers, and wage proxy fights for the support of local Republican activists.

But over the past year, with Romney emerging as a strong potential challenger to McCain, the governor has shown more and more willingness to go after the senator, criticizing his actions and positions on immigration, campaign finance, national defense, and gay marriage.

Perhaps Romney's most brazen attack came in September, when McCain and two other Republican senators challenged Bush on a bill setting parameters for the treatment of terrorism detainees. McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, pushed for more rights for those in American custody.

"This issue is not them -- this issue is about us," McCain said at a New Hampshire campaign stop, according to an account in The New York Times. "The United States has always been better than our enemies."

Romney seized on McCain's bucking of Bush, calling it "a big mistake." "I am foursquare behind the president on this," Romney told the Times.

That remark drew a rare retort from McCain, who was quoted in the same story saying of Romney, "He doesn't have a vote."

Last month, Romney accused McCain of being "disingenuous" for opposing gay marriage but not supporting a federal constitutional amendment to ban it.

"Look, if somebody says they're in favor of gay marriage, I respect that view," Romney said in an interview with the Washington Examiner. "If someone says like I do that I oppose same-sex marriage, I respect that view. But those who try and pretend to have it both ways, I find it to be disingenuous."

However, Romney, when he ran against Senator Edward M. Kennedy in 1994, held the same position McCain does now: that it should be up to states, not the federal government, to decide whether to outlaw same-sex marriage.

Romney has also attacked the landmark 2002 campaign finance reform bill that McCain crafted with Russell Feingold, a liberal Democratic senator from Wisconsin. "There's more money in politics, not less," Romney was quoted as saying in an interview last month with The Business Journal of Phoenix.

And Romney has been critical of proposals to grant "amnesty" for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States, and amnesty, according to opponents, is precisely what would result from the passage of an immigration bill McCain wrote with Kennedy this year.

So how long will McCain refuse to engage with Romney?

"Why should we respond?" said McCain's chief strategist, John Weaver. "As far as I can tell he's having a debate with himself on every issue known to man."

Weaver was referring to Romney's shifts to more conservative positions on several social issues since he ran for governor in 2002 and for Senate in 1994, which the Globe and other media have detailed in recent weeks.

But McCain is clearly taking Romney seriously as a potential rival. During the Republican Governors Association conference, McCain swooped into Miami to hold his own swank campaign reception, dropping off invitations for governors, lobbyists, and GOP operatives at the conference hotel.

Jared Young, a spokesman for Romney's political action committee, said the governor is not making a concerted effort to go after McCain.

"Neither of these guys are candidates, so what point would there be in that?" he said. "If the governor decides to run and Senator McCain does, then I hope we have time to talk about differences in policy ideas and vision for America's future. But now's not really the time for that."

Benjamin Ginsberg, a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University, said Romney, in making attacks on McCain, is doing what any "also-ran" would do.

"You try to engage the front-runner and by so doing you put yourself in a position of equality with McCain -- McCain said X, but Romney said Y," Ginsberg said.

But with McCain still far more widely known around the country than Romney, Ginsberg said, "McCain would be foolish to engage him."

McCain, though, hasn't always been able to resist.

A year ago, when Romney announced at a State House press conference that he would not seek a second term, he answered a question about his 2008 plans this way: "You know, John McCain the other day said that he thinks about being president every day in the shower. I guess I'd turn instead to the words of 'Star Wars,' which is, it's in a galaxy far, far away."

A few days later, when ABC's George Stephanopoulos showed a tape of Romney's comments, McCain shot back: "I'm glad that the governor is paying attention to the jokes that I tell on talk shows, but New Hampshire is not that far away from Massachusetts."

Scott Helman can be reached at shelman@globe.com.