Dems play up McCain-Romney tensions before campaign visit

Democrats played up the 2008 tensions between Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) ahead of a planned trip by Romney on Friday to campaign for McCain.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) highlighted the one-time tensions between the two rivals for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination in a new Web video.

“Mitt Romney campaigning with John McCain … oh how times have changed!” reads a frame in the video.

The video draws on heated shots Romney and McCain had taken at each other during the campaign, before McCain eventually won the nomination. Romney had subsequently endorsed and campaigned for McCain in the general election, in an effort to bury the hatchet from the primary.

Now, like many Republicans who joined with McCain on the campaign trail, Romney is stumping for the veteran senator as he seeks to hold off a conservative primary challenge from former Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.). McCain’s 2008 running mate, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R), and other Republicans have also traveled to campaign for him.

Of course, McCain and Romney weren’t the only pair of candidates in 2008 who managed to bury the hatchet. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton were able to set aside the differences in their extremely testy and prolonged 2008 Democratic primary battle.

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