In the midst of reports on the historic nature of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama’s candidacy and as speculation roils about whether he will ask his bitter rival Hillary Clinton to join the ticket, the Boston Globe also found time to take a few jabs at presumptive GOP nominee John McCain and former rival Mitt Romney.
Local politics writer Yvonne Abraham, in a
June 4 article titled "McMitt Picking," sought to discuss the potential pairing of McCain and Romney for the presidential and vice presidential spots on the Republican ticket. However, her column was a little less than friendly.
While talk of unifying the Democratic Party is rampant in the media, Abraham sought to emphasize the heated Republican primary, highlighting the feud between McCain and the former Massachusetts governor by noting that McCain had compared Romney to a farm animal. In January, after reporters asked McCain about Romney, McCain said, "Never get into a wrestling match with a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it."
Previously, the Globe
reported on this quote by McCain in a story which highlighted Romney’s attacks against the senator while also showcasing McCain as "caustic and confident." After all, the Globe did
endorse McCain in the Republican primary. Now it seems Abraham isn’t exactly excited about the prospect of a McCain presidency and wants to remind readers of the Republican Party’s bitter primary contests.
While the media are going crazy over the fact that Obama is the first African- American to become the presidential nominee of a major political party, Abraham, reminded readers that McCain and Romney are both just "wealthy white men" in describing the similarities between the two. Getting in a good jab at her former governor, Abraham steamed over Romney and McCain with these lines: "John McCain made himself a national figure by riding around the country on a bus. And our Mitt made himself a national figure by throwing Massachusetts under one."
Now that the staunchly anti-war Obama, who, contrasted with Hillary Clinton -- who voted for the war before she advocated against it --can officially be called the presumptive Democratic nominee, Abraham took this opportunity to highlight McCain and Romney’s political course corrections: "But perhaps the quality the two men share most is their tremendous flexibility." Abraham noted McCain’s changed stances on illegal immigration, the Bush tax cuts and his recent embrace of religious leaders’ endorsements.
Regarding Romney, Abraham sarcastically added, "Our Mitt has made some major, purely conscience-driven, reassessments." She continued, "For example, he used to be for gun control: Now he belongs to the NRA. He once supported gay rights: Now he reckons gay marriage will destroy society. He once said he liked McCain's immigration package. Then he declared it an amnesty plan."
The columnist also highlighted the two men’s views of abortion: "And both men seem to have struggled over abortion. When our Mitt was campaigning to be our governor in 2002, he said he would protect a woman's right to choose. But he now says his views 'evolved and deepened' once he got into the corner office, and he reversed himself. Coincidentally, this was about the time he started running for president. In 1999, McCain said he opposed the repeal of abortion rights, but he now says he is for nixing Roe v. Wade.'
Abraham ended her hit piece on the GOP’s most prominent "wealthy white men" with even more sarcasm, hailing the pair as "an odd couple," but joking, "but hey, let's celebrate diversity."
