Martinez's endorsement gives McCain boost in Fla.

January 26, 2008

MIAMI - Senator Mel Martinez of Florida endorsed John McCain yesterday, a move likely to give the Republican presidential candidate a crucial boost with the state's Cuban-Americans just days before the primary.

The decision is a blow to Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor in a close fight with McCain for support of voters in the Cuban-American community.

Martinez, who was born in Cuba, emigrated to the United States as a teenager. He and McCain are longtime friends from the Senate, and worked closely together on a bill that would have created an eventual path to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants in the country. Martinez is the fourth prominent Cuban-American lawmaker to back McCain.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

John McCain and Mitt Romney have dueling ads on the Internet charging that the other is a flip-flopper on tax cuts - both of which recall the famous "Windsurfing" spot the Bush camp ran against Senator John F. Kerry in 2004.

Romney's Internet-only ad pokes fun at McCain's votes against President Bush's tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 and shows the Arizona senator saying on Fox News on Thursday that, "I've always been for tax cuts. I have always, although I voted against the first tax cuts." The clip is set to the Blue Danube Waltz, which was also used in the 2004 windsurfing spot that hit Kerry for his shifting positions on the Iraq war.

Within hours after Romney's spot, McCain's camp responded with a similar ad titled "Mittsurfing." It plays the same waltz and shows Romney's head spliced onto a windsurfer.

The announcer says, "He tells Florida he supports the Bush tax cuts. But as Massachusetts governor, Romney refused to take a position on the Bush tax cuts and then increased taxes by $700 million, but tried to call them fees. Where does Mitt Romney stand? Whichever way the wind blows."

MICHAEL LEVENSON

Senator John F. Kerry is the latest prominent Democrat to hit former President Bill Clinton for his criticisms of Barack Obama.

"I think you had an abuse of the truth, is what happened," Kerry said in an interview yesterday with National Journal On Air. "I mean, being an ex-president does not give you license to abuse the truth, and I think that over the last days it's been over the top. Things have been said about Barack Obama's positions that are just plain untrue."

Kerry, the 2004 Democratic nominee who endorsed Obama earlier this month, was pressed by Linda Douglass of National Journal to elaborate on his remarks about Clinton. "I think there has been an overreach with respect to what Barack Obama has said and when he said it, and I think it's been unfortunate, but I don't think we ought to spend out time there," Kerry replied.

FOON RHEE

CONCORD, N.H. - Supporters of Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul are helping to bankroll the recount of votes in New Hampshire's Jan. 8 Republican presidential primary.

GOP candidate Albert Howard of Ann Arbor, Mich., requested the recount, which began Wednesday and was continuing. Howard got 44 of the more 200,000 votes cast.

Because Howard wasn't close to the leaders, he had to pay the about $60,000 cost of the hand recount. Howard said a group of Paul supporters called the "grannywarriors" is paying for the recount.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

BOCA RATON, Fla. - Mike Huckabee's cash-strapped presidential campaign has scraped together enough money to run a new television ad - in limited fashion.

The ad, in which the Republican calls for abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, will air on national cable news channels over the next four days, aides say. It will not, at this point, be seen on widely viewed broadcast channels.

ASSOCIATED PRESS