Romney tells GOP: 'Put house in order'
MACKINAC ISLAND, Mich. - Republican Mitt Romney yesterday bluntly challenged his party to "put our own house in order" as the GOP presidential candidates courted activists in Michigan, now an important player in the nomination march.
Rivals John McCain and Rudy Giuliani also assailed Democratic contenders during a weekend retreat attended by some 1,500 Republicans on a picturesque Lake Huron island.
"Washington is failing us," Romney said in a speech that is part of a new effort to cast him as the candidate who can lead the party back to its core principles.
"The blame doesn't all belong to the Democrats. We Republicans have to put our own house in order," the former Massachusetts governor said.
McCain, in remarks planned for last night, lamented "a perilous time for our party but, far more important, a perilous time for our country." The Arizona senator attacked the national security positions of leading Democratic candidates, although he did not name the politicians, and renewed his call for resolve on Iraq.
Former New York mayor Giuliani drew boisterous bursts of applause, cheers, and laughter Friday night for castigating the Democrats. At one point, he asked: "Do we go in the direction of much larger government, which is where Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, or John Edwards will take us, or do we go in the direction of . . . giving people more control over their own lives?"
The GOP gathering came three weeks after Michigan moved its primaries to Jan. 15.
Romney offered a sobering assessment of the party and said Republicans share the blame with Democrats for the nation's woes.
"When Republicans act like Democrats, America loses," he said. "We've got to start acting like Republicans, not earmarking Republicans, not big government Republicans, but like Reagan Republicans and Teddy Roosevelt Republicans."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Bush hints of a Clinton win
WASHINGTON - Karl Rove may not think much of Senator Hillary Clinton's chances of winning the White House, but it sounds as though President Bush is less sanguine.
At an off-the-record lunch a week ago, Bush expressed admiration for her tenacity in the campaign. And he left some in the room with the impression that he thinks she will win the election and has been thinking about how to turn over the country to her.
The topic came up when Bush invited a group of morning and evening news anchors and Sunday show hosts to join him in the executive mansion's family dining room a few hours before he delivered his nationally televised address on Iraq last week.
Bush made no explicit election predictions, according to some in the room, but clearly thought Clinton would win the Democratic nomination and talked in a way that seemed to suggest he expects her to succeed him - and will continue his Iraq policy if so.
As Bush was describing his thinking about Iraq and the future, he indicated that he wants to use his final 16 months to stabilize Iraq enough and redefine the US mission there so that the next president would feel politically able to keep a smaller but long-term presence in the country.
