MANCHESTER, N.H. — Ten Republican presidential hopefuls, sharing a stage once more, clashed Tuesday night over immigration. But some of their harshest rhetoric was aimed at a surprising off-stage target: President Bush.
The rift between the White House and some fellow Republicans has grown increasingly pronounced in recent days as the president has promoted an immigration overhaul that is anathema to many party conservatives.
But criticism of the incumbent extended beyond that volatile issue, encompassing the war in Iraq and the administration's handling of Hurricane Katrina.
The criticism started when the GOP candidates, participating in their third debate, were asked how they would employ Bush after he left office. The first to answer, former Bush Cabinet member Tommy G. Thompson, brought a momentary hush to the audience with his tart response. "I certainly would not send him to the United Nations," said Thompson, a former secretary of Health and Human Services.
Others chimed in. Thrashing Bush and Republicans in Congress, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said the party "deserved to get beat" in the 2006 election.
"We've lost credibility, the way we bungled Katrina, the fact that there was corruption that was unchecked in Washington, and the fact that there was a feeling that there was not a proper handling of the Iraqi war," along with "indifference to people pouring over our borders," Huckabee said.
Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, a harsh critic of Bush on immigration, recalled that White House aide Karl Rove once told him, "Never darken the door of the White House." The congressman said he would tell Bush the same thing.
Sen. John McCain of Arizona faulted the administration's conduct of the Iraq war in responding to a question from a distraught voter, Erin Flanagan of nearby Bedford. She described her family as devastated by the 2005 death in Iraq of her younger brother, Army 1st Lt. Michael J. Cleary.
"I'm going to give you a little straight talk," McCain told her, invoking the slogan of his 2000 White House campaign against Bush as he stood up and approached Flanagan. "This war was very badly mismanaged for a long time, and Americans have made great sacrifices, some of which were unnecessary because of this ... mismanagement of this conflict."
The rupture between Bush and his own party's White House hopefuls on a stage here at St. Anselm College underscored the foul political climate facing Republicans as they try to retain the White House in 2008 amid an unpopular war that has badly damaged the GOP brand.
