McCain's Misquotes and "Dirty" Tactics Lead to Ambiguity

Tonight’s four candidate Republican debate ended up being a two-man show. In their best attempt at replicating the heated exchange between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in the last Democratic debate, John McCain and Mitt Romney continuously spoke over one another, exchanged blows, and refused to let Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul get a word in during the hour and a half broadcast.

Mitt Romney, normally robotic in his responses during such debates, showed, dare I say, emotion when John McCain offered a dated quote implicating Romney as a proponent for a timetable for leaving Iraq. “What does that even mean?” Romney repeated several times over McCain, as if in a last ditch effort to stop the negative slander that was being fed into the public before his very eyes. The exchange between McCain and Romney over this “Iraq Timetable,” in a sense, did not completely bury Romney.

Before today, Senator McCain was framed as a man who was respected by all of his opponents in the race for the GOP Presidental nomination. This was further enforced earlier this afternoon when former opponent Rudy Guliani pledged his support to McCain. The outflow of support for McCain did not stop with Guilani however, CNN’s Anderson Cooper reported, just before the beginning of the debate, that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was due to pledge his support for John McCain as early as tomorrow afternoon.

It really makes be wonder why someone like McCain, who has so much going for him at this point during primary season, would stoop to using “dirty” tactics against Romney. It was weird for me to feel bad for Mitt Romney. Personally, I think that he is the coldest candidate on both Democratic and Republican cards. Not to mention that the New York Times hit the nail on the head when its poll named Romney the least likable Presidential candidate. However, after McCain’s attempt to use “dirty” tactics against Romney, viewers cannot help but feel the same ambiguity that I spoke about earlier. By the end of the debate... were they really feeling bad for Mitt Romney? The tactics and misquotes that littered McCain's debate tonight did more harm than help for the Arizona senator.

Will Rudy and "The Governator’s" endorsement of John McCain overshadow his attempts to burry Romney with dated quotations and misquoted statistics? Only time will tell. At the close of tonight's GOP debate, despite no indication of a clear-cut winner, it was blatantly apparent that John McCain was a loser.