While smiling and stroking each other's back, perhaps security should check and make sure that neither McCain nor Romney's hand contains a knife.
Let's have some fun and see how these two really feel about each other
From MSNBC
Romney, right before the Florida Primary:
"If you ask people, 'Look at the three things Senator McCain has done as a senator,' if you want that kind of a liberal Democrat course as president, then you can vote for him," Romney told campaign workers. "But those three pieces of legislation, those aren't conservative, those aren't Republican, those are not the kind of leadership that we need as we go forward."
McCain's response:
He accused the former Massachusetts senator of "wholesale deception of voters. On every one of the issues he has attacked us on, Mitt Romney was for it before he was against it."
He added, "The truth is, Mitt Romney was a liberal governor of Massachusetts who raised taxes, imposed with Ted Kennedy a big government mandate health care plan that is now a quarter of a billion dollars in the red, and managed his state's economy incompetently, leaving Massachusetts with less job growth than 46 other states."
The Concord Monitor
From a McCain web ad:
"Mitt Romney, leading?" an announcer says. "He'd rather call lawyers . . . and bureaucrats."
From a Romney ad:
"Higher taxes, amnesty for illegals - that's straight talk for being in Washington too long," the ad finishes.
ABC News
The former Massachusetts governor continued to bash McCain for voting against the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. McCain further distanced himself from the failed immigration reform bill he co-wrote with Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass. When CNN's Anderson Cooper asked him whether he would vote for that bill if it came up in the Senate again, McCain said he would not and seemed reluctant even to accept the premise.
Newser
McCain:
"One thing I have to give Romney credit for is he's consistently taken both sides of any major issue."
Huffington Post
McCain on Romney:
McCain told reporters traveling with him in New Hampshire: "Never get into a wrestling match with a pig. You both get dirty - and the pig likes it."
Fox NewsYes, I know, its Fox News, but I'll be more than happy to use them when their eating their own.
Romney:
The former Massachusetts governor ignited a new verbal missile on Sunday, hitting his rival over the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act, which Romney says would depress the economy, rather than stimulate it. "His plan calls for a new financial burden to be placed on people who are purchasing gasoline or, for that matter, natural gas to heat their homes or to cook in their homes. The Energy Information Agency has said that his plan would cost America 300,000 jobs. In addition, people would pay, they estimate, approximately 50 cents per gallon more for gasoline and 20 percent more for their gas utility bill," Romney told a rally of about 300 mostly Hispanic voters in Sweetwater, Fla.
"He sort of feels that maybe America should pay for global warming. Don’t you understand? They don’t call it America warming. They call it global warming," he said.
McCain:
But McCain launched a counter-attack on Romney’s economic turf, saying the former Massachusetts governor, didn’t do such a great job as executive for his state.
Gov. Romney’s record in Massachusetts shows the state "had the 3rd lowest job creation, where they had $730 million in tax increases, where they had more manufacturing jobs flee the state of Massachusetts than almost double the national average and now a health care mandate that’s $245 million dollars in the red," McCain said at a town hall meeting in Polk City
The former Vietnam POW also would not back down from likening Romney to Democrats who abruptly want to get U.S. troops out of Iraq, a position the Romney campaign vehemently denies.
"The Romney campaign has been trying to interpret his remarks in a way that can’t be interpreted. The statement is quote: ‘You don’t want the enemy to understand how long they have to wait in the weeds until you’re going to be gone.’ ... You can only read (that) ... as an endorsement of a timetable ...
NPR
McCain took aim at Romney's record as governor, accusing him of raising taxes by $730 million in Massachusetts.
Romney on McCain:
"It's an attempt to do the Washington-style old politics," Romney said of McCain's allegation. "Lay a charge out there regardless of whether it's true or not. Don't check it, don't talk to the other candidate, just throw it out there. Get it in the media, in the stream. There's not a single media source that I've seen that hasn't said it was reprehensible. Even The New York Times said it was wrong ... It's simply wrong and the senator knows it."
Politico
"I would note that Senator McCain is noted for three major pieces of legislation. I think all of them were badly flawed," Romney said, widening his attack to incorporate McCain’s campaign finance legislation and the immigration reform bill "And if somebody wants to know where he would lead the country you simply need to look at the three pieces of legislation with his name at the top."
And McCain:
"One thing we should give Governor Romney credit for, he is consistent. He's consistently taken both sides of every issue, he has consistently flip-flopped on every issue."
and
Calling his rival "the liberal governor of Massachusetts," McCain said Romney "raised taxes by $730 million dollars."
Lots more out there..but you can only read so much of this before dinner.
If McCain selects Romney they will both have some explaining to do.