McCain crashes Romney fete

MIAMI -- It's been Governor Mitt Romney's show here at the annual conference of the Republican Governors Association: He's led the program, been the sought-after VIP at swank dinners and parties, and drawn much of the national media spotlight.

Until John McCain showed up.

The Arizona senator, making a strike in what Romney had hoped would be exclusively his terrain for three days, came to town and flexed his political muscle by courting the very governors, GOP activists, and lobbyists who had flown in for Romney's big event at Doral Golf Resort & Spa.

While Romney was holding political meetings and finalizing his speech for last night's RGA dinner, McCain huddled privately with Republican governors at the same resort. Later in the day, McCain's campaign bused RGA attendees from the Doral to a catered reception at a resort owned by former Miami Dolphins coach Don Shula.

"This is only natural," Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi explained as he sipped a mixed drink at McCain's party, saying that the dogfight for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination was well under way.

To wit: Key Republican players such as Barbour and Governor-elect Charlie Crist of Florida found themselves praised publicly by Romney at a morning press conference, then later, invited on stage next to McCain as he delivered brief remarks at his reception.

The only wrinkle in McCain's plan was the Miami traffic, which delayed him an hour and a half for his own event, leaving guests confused as they picked over the shrimp cocktail, crawfish, and crab legs.

"I wonder why they're running so far behind," a woman asked impatiently.

Once he arrived, McCain dismissed a suggestion that he was horning in on Romney's territory.

"This is Florida," McCain told reporters. "I used to be a resident of the state of Florida."

For his part, Romney used a major address at the RGA dinner last night to attack Democrats, saying they have the wrong priorities and contending that Republicans are the party of the future because they believe that "it is the people of America that make America great."

"If you believe that, as I do, that our source of strength is our people, then when American faces a new generation of challenges like we do today, you don't look to government," Romney said. "You don't look to make government bigger, you don't look to make government stronger. You look to make the people stronger, because that has always been and will always be the source of our destiny."

The Romney-McCain tussle occurred as Republican presidential hopefuls worked to take advantage of the sudden departure from the race of Senate majority leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, which opens a slate of donors.

For example, Zachariah P. Zachariah, a Fort Lauderdale cardiologist renowned for raising big money for Republican presidential candidates, backed Frist but is now in the market for a new candidate.

Several candidates have been aggressively courting Zachariah -- Romney met with him last week, he said -- since Frist dropped his candidacy Wednesday.

"I am just digesting all these things and trying to make the decision about which one would be the best president," said Zachariah, who plans to choose by the end of the year.

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