Romney praises Bush, bashes Washington

ST. PETERSBURG, Florida (Reuters) - Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney often casts himself as an agent of change who would fix a "broken Washington" but he spares an obvious target -- President George W. Bush.

"I salute the fact the president has kept us safe these past six years," he told a rally on Saturday in Florida, whose primary on Tuesday is the next test in the most wide open race for the Republican presidential nomination in 50 years.

A day earlier, speaking to reporters, he was even kinder to the unpopular president, saying that while he differed with Bush at times he still deeply respects him.

"Has the president done everything perfectly? Absolutely not," he said. "But is he a person I deeply respect for his conviction and his appreciation for the country and his desire to do what's right for it? I sure do."

While Bush's job approval rating languishes near record lows of around 30 percent, it is more than double that among core Republican primary voters who could make the difference in Florida's primary.

Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, is aggressively courting that Republican Party base in his race with John McCain, a four-term Arizona senator who Florida polls show is neck-and-neck with Romney.

Florida is the next battle in the state-by-state contests to pick nominees for the November 4 presidential election to succeed Bush.

At campaign rallies, Romney presents himself as an outsider who would fix a "fundamentally broken" Washington. Both Democrats and Republicans, he often says, are to blame.

In Florida's conservative bastion of Pensacola on Friday, he derided "an arrogance that sets into Washington".

"These last few decades have not been kind to Washington and people are tired of it," he said.

MENTIONS THE ELDER BUSH

Like many speeches, he ended the rally with praise for Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, president from 1989 to 1993.

After winning Michigan's primary this month, Romney said he drew inspiration from the elder Bush and former president Ronald Reagan, staying clear of any mention of the current president in a state that continues to lose thousands of auto manufacturing jobs.

But as he campaigns in Florida, a more conservative state, references to the first president Bush are now accompanied with fulsome praise of the current president's handling of national security.

"It is easy and fashionable to point out the failures and conflict of management, particularly in Iraq, and that's going to be the case in any war. But let us not forget this president has kept us safe these last six years," Romney said on Wednesday in Boca Raton.

It's unclear how the multimillionaire former venture capitalist, who is often accused of shifting positions for political convenience on heated issues such as abortion, would handle the branding of being a Bush loyalist in the general election against Democrats, given the president's low popularity.

But he draws heavily on the political network of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's brother.

His senior policy adviser, Sally Bradshaw, was a chief of staff for Jeb Bush, for example, while his state director, Mandy Fletcher, was Florida political director of President Bush's 2004 campaign and executive director of a Jeb Bush advocacy group.

(Editing by Philip Barbara)