CONCORD, N.H. – Mitt Romney’s Republican challengers made a last-ditch effort to take down their party’s front-runner in Sunday morning’s GOP primary debate, assailing Romney’s conservative credentials and his self-description as a political outsider.
Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, Romney’s two most formidable opponents on the right, charged at the former Massachusetts governor from the start.
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The two conservative upstarts mounted a tag-team attack on Romney. Santorum accused Romney of “bailing” from a difficult 2006 reelection campaign; when Romney cast that and his other time out of office as a selfless choice, Gingrich pounced.
“Can we drop a little bit of the pious baloney?” Gingrich asked Romney. “You were running for president while you were governor … You then promptly reentered politics. You lost to McCain, just as you lost to [Ted] Kennedy [in 1994.”
Gingrich kept going: “Just level with the American people. You’ve been running at least since the 1990s.”
Romney, facing a sustained assault on the debate stage for the first time this cycle, stuck to his version of the events.
“I never thought I’d get involved in politics,” he responded, saying of his race against Kennedy: “I happened to have been wise enough to realize I didn’t have a ghost of a chance of beating him.”
Three other candidates shared the stage in Concord at the candidate forum hosted by NBC News and Facebook: Rick Perry, Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman.
The tone was markedly different from Saturday night’s debate, as the candidates seemed to realize that absent a direct confrontation with Romney — who’s far ahead in polls for Tuesday’s primary — he would be well on his way to claiming the Republican presidential nomination.
Even the mild-mannered Huntsman went out of his way to seek out a moment of contrast with Romney, bringing up a comment Romney made at the previous debate, swatting Huntsman for having served in the Obama administration.
“I was criticized last night by Gov. Romney for putting my country first,” Huntsman said. “I want to be very clear with the people in this country. I will always put my country first.”
Romney appeared unimpressed by the line of attack, reminding Republican viewers that Huntsman had once described President Barack Obama as a “remarkable leader.”
“I think we serve our country first by standing for people who stand for conservative principles,” Romney said.
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