GOP Hopefuls Pile on Clinton During Florida Debate  | News | Advocate.com

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October 23, 2007
GOP Hopefuls Pile on Clinton During Florida Debate

And the loser is...Hillary Clinton.

That's how Republicans cast their debate Sunday night, when they weren't feuding with one another in their most direct and contentious exchanges yet.

Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani used humor to hit Clinton, exclaiming, ''You gotta be kidding!'' when asked if he differs with her on abortion and gay rights.

''There are two things I agree with Hillary Clinton on. First of all, we're both Yankee fans,'' he said to laughter.

''Well, wait a second -- I became a Yankee fan growing up in New York. She became a Yankee fan growing up in Chicago,'' he said of the former first lady, who moved to New York to run for the Senate in 2000.

Then Giuliani quoted her as saying, ''I have a million ideas; America cannot afford them all.''

''I'm not making it up,'' he said to more laughter. ''No kidding, Hillary -- America can't afford you.''

Relaxed, smiling, and conversational, Giuliani reinforced his image as a front-runner much as he does on the campaign trail, by disparaging the former first lady as much as he criticizes other Republicans.

''He's got that riff down well, and it was really funny and very effective,'' Republican pollster Whit Ayres said. ''Don't underestimate the value of experience in these forums -- he's obviously a bright man and has gotten very comfortable.''

The New York senator makes an easy target among Republicans, despite, or perhaps because of, her lead in polls against GOP contenders. The audience of more than 3,300 party faithful cheered at every Clinton line in the debate, which was sponsored by Fox News Channel and the Florida Republican Party.

''Scoring points on Hillary in this group -- hell, that's like a five-foot basket. You're just dropping the ball in,'' said David Johnson, a Tallahassee political strategist and former head of the Florida GOP.

Mitt Romney, dominant in polling in the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire, challenged Clinton's experience.

''She hasn't run a corner store. She hasn't run a state. She hasn't run a city. She has never run anything,'' the former Massachusetts governor said.

The biggest applause line of the night, delivered by Arizona senator John McCain, also came at Clinton's expense. McCain, a foe of congressional spending, mentioned Clinton's effort to spend $1 million on a Woodstock Museum to commemorate perhaps the most famous counterculture event of the 1960s.

''Now, my friends, I wasn't there. I'm sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event,'' McCain said.

''I was tied up at the time,'' he deadpanned, and the audience rose, applauding the reference to McCain's years as a Vietnam prisoner of war.

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, a Southern Baptist known for his folksy one-liners, said: ''Look, I like to be funny. There's nothing funny about Hillary Clinton being president.''

When they weren't focused on Clinton, the candidates were emphasizing their conservative credentials, putting Giuliani and Romney on the spot.

Former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson said: ''Mayor Giuliani believes in federal funding for abortion. He believes in sanctuary cities. He's for gun control. He supported Mario Cuomo, a liberal Democrat, against a Republican who was running for governor, then opposed the governor's tax cuts when he was there.''

Thompson also mentioned Romney's 1994 campaign against Massachusetts senator Ted Kennedy, when Romney cast himself as a defender of a woman's right to abortion, an issue on which Romney says he has changed his mind.

''Actually, Mitt, I didn't know there was any room to the left of Ted Kennedy,'' Thompson quipped.

Thompson appeared confident and easygoing, and quick to defend himself when Giuliani questioned his own conservative credentials. Giuliani called Thompson the ''single biggest obstacle'' in the Senate to curbing frivolous lawsuits.

Thompson responded by saying it's a matter of federalism, the concept of power divided between national and state government. ''Local issues belong at the state level. Most states have passed tort reform,'' he said.

Thompson even managed a graceful response to a question about whether, as some critics have suggested, he is lazy. He described his trajectory from teenage father to factory worker to federal prosecutor and Watergate counsel and finally to the Senate, and he mentioned his help since then shepherding Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts' nomination through Congress.

''If a man can do all that and be lazy, I recommend it to everybody,'' he said to laughter and applause, adding that he is a father of five children, two of them under age 4. (Libby Quaid, AP)

© 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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