Who would have thought Republican presidential candidates would be fighting over New York City and Massachusetts, considered two of the more liberal bastions of the country.  

Both front runners Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, and Mitt Romney, the ex-governor of Massachusetts, have been pounding each other about their supposed “liberal” records in their respective locales.
 
Each day reporters’ e-mail inboxes are flooded with messages from the campaigns accusing the other candidate of being more like Democrats on abortion, health care, immigration and gay rights, citing their opponent’s past record. 
 
“There is one Republican candidate in the race with a track record of cutting taxes 23 times and that is Rudy Giuliani. No amount of political spin can help Mitt Romney re-write the history books. Mitt Romney failed to pass a single tax cut as governor and the Cato Institute gave him a ‘C’ for his handling of the economy as governor. Mitt Romney can repackage himself as many times as he wants but his failing fiscal record speaks for itself,” Katie Levinson, Giuliani’s communications director, said in her latest missive.
 
Not so fast, responded the Romney camp. His spokesman Kevin Madden offered a half-dozen citations from news articles, speeches and press releases from the Club for Growth touting the state’s performance as well as statistics on how Massachusetts’ economy fared under Romney.

“Gov. Romney’s has an extraordinary record of fiscal discipline, lower taxes and pro-growth economic policies.  Gov. Romney was applauded for cutting wasteful spending and insisting upon more efficiency in government. His record of balanced budgets and smart management is quite different from the fiscally irresponsible budget deficits that Mayor Giuliani left in New York City,” Madden said.

Photo credit: Reuters/Brian Snyder