CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich accused former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney of “pious baloney” Sunday for saying he’s not a career politician, demanding in a campaign debate that the Republican presidential front-runner “just level with the American people.”
Mr. Romney denied the accusation briskly.
“Politics is not my career,” he said. “My life’s passion has been my family, my faith, my country.”
The exchange — and another one in which former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum swapped jibes with Mr. Romney — marked the opening moments of the second half of a weekend debate doubleheader in the run-up to Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary.
Mr. Romney won the Iowa caucuses last Tuesday by eight votes over Mr. Santorum. He leads in the polls in New Hampshire, where his rivals have all but conceded he will win.
South Carolina comes next, on Jan. 21, the first Southern state to hold a primary, and Mr. Romney pointedly noted that he has been endorsed by that state’s governor, Nikki Haley.
The debate began only hours after one in which Mr. Romney’s rivals made early attempts to knock him off-stride but spent more time squabbling among themselves in an attempt to emerge as his chief rival.
Mr. Santorum finished second in Iowa, followed by Texas Rep. Ron Paul, with Mr. Gingrich fourth, Texas Gov. Rick Perry fifth and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann in last place. She has since quit the race. Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman skipped Iowa in hopes of a breakout showing in New Hampshire.
Mr. Perry drew laughter as well as applause when he said that federal bureaucrats would experience pain as a result of his plans to cut spending, especially those in the departments of Education, Commerce and Energy. That was a reference to his gaffe in an earlier debate when he couldn’t recall the name of the third of the Cabinet-level agencies he has proposed eliminating.
Mr. Huntsman, who was President Obama’s ambassador to China before quitting to run for the White House, returned to a comment Mr. Romney had made the night before. Mr. Romney said then that the rest of the GOP hopefuls had been trying to oppose the administration’s policies while Mr. Huntsman was advancing them.
“And I just want to remind the people here in New Hampshire and throughout the United States, he criticized me while he was out raising money for serving my country in China, yes, under a Democrat, like my two sons are doing in the United States Navy. They’re not asking what political affiliation the president is. “
Generally, the morning-after debate followed the same trend as the one the night before.
Mr. Romney shrugged off the attacks from his rivals on the debate stage and worked to turn the focus onto Mr. Obama and the long road to economic recovery, while his rivals maneuvered for position. Mr. Romney said he doesn’t blame the president for the recession, which was well under way when Mr. Obama took office in 2009. “What I blame him for is having it go on so long and going so deep and having a recovery that’s so tepid.”
Mr. Obama has been “anti-investment, anti-jobs and anti-business,” he said.
Mr. Gingrich, for his part, said Mr. Romney was a “relatively timid Massachusetts moderate” whose state ranked fourth from the bottom in job creation when he was governor.
But confronted with one of his campaign leaflets declaring Mr. Romney to be unelectable against President Obama, Mr. Gingrich hedged.
“I think he’ll have a very hard time getting elected,” he said.
Mr. Romney said he had created more jobs in one state than Mr. Obama has in the entire country, adding that it was important to replace “a lifetime politician” like the president with a different type of leader.
Mr. Santorum, too, took a swipe at Mr. Romney, asking why he hadn’t sought re-election as governor after one term.
“Why did you bail out? And the bottom line is, I go fight the fight,” Mr. Santorum said, referring to his time in Congress in the House of Representatives from a blue-collar district.
Mr. Romney jabbed back with a reference to Mr. Santorum’s lucrative career in the six years since he lost a Senate re-election campaign in 2006.
“I long for the day when instead of having people to go to Washington for 20 to 30 years, will get elected and then when they lose office, they stay there and make money as lobbyists or conducting their businesses.
“I think it stinks,” Mr. Romney said.
Moments later, Mr. Gingrich appeared irked and accused Mr. Romney of using more than his allotted time to respond.
“I realize the red light doesn’t mean anything to you because you’re the front-runner.”
“Could we drop a little bit of the pious baloney. The fact is you ran in ’94 and lost (to Ted Kennedy). … You were running for president while you were governor. … You’ve been running consistently for years.”
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