Republicans assail Obama, not each other in debate

From left, for­mer Penn­syl­va­nia Sen. Rick San­to­rum, Rep. Michele Bach­mann, R-Minn., for­mer House Speaker Newt Gin­grich, for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Gov. Mitt Rom­ney, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, for­mer Min­nesota Gov. Tim Paw­lenty and busi­ness­man Her­man Cain stand on stage before first New Hamp­shire Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial debate at St. Anselm Col­lege in Man­ches­ter, N.H., Mon­day. (Asso­ci­ated Press | Jim Cole)

PHILIP ELLIOTT

Asso­ci­ated Press

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Repub­li­can White House hope­fuls con­demned Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s han­dling of the econ­omy from the open­ing moments of their first major debate of the cam­paign sea­son Mon­day night, and pledged emphat­i­cally to repeal his his­toric year-old health care overhaul.

“When 14 mil­lion Amer­i­cans are out of work we need a new pres­i­dent to end the Obama Depres­sion,” declared for­mer House Speaker Newt Gin­grich, the first among seven con­tenders on stage to crit­i­cize the president’s eco­nomic policies.

Rep. Michele Bach­mann of Min­nesota, invited as an unan­nounced con­tender for the 2012 nom­i­na­tion, upstaged her rivals for a moment, using a nation­wide tele­vi­sion audi­ence to announce she had filed papers ear­lier in the day to run — a dis­clo­sure in keep­ing with a feisty style she has employed in a bid to become a favorite of tea party voters.

Obama was hun­dreds of miles away on a day in which he blended a pledge to help com­pa­nies cre­ate jobs in North Car­olina with a series of cam­paign fundrais­ers in Florida. He won the two states in 2008, and both fig­ure to be bat­tle­grounds in 2012.

The New Hamp­shire event unfolded more than six months before the state hosts the first pri­mary of the 2012 cam­paign, and the Repub­li­cans who shared a stage were plainly more inter­ested in crit­i­ciz­ing Obama than one another.

For­mer Mass­a­chu­setts Gov. Mitt Rom­ney, who first sought the nom­i­na­tion in 2008, was the nom­i­nal front-runner as the cur­tain rose on the debate. But the pub­lic opin­ion polls that made him so are noto­ri­ously unre­li­able at this point in the cam­paign, when rel­a­tively few vot­ers have begun to famil­iar­ize them­selves with their choices.

Already, this race has had its share of surprises.

Sev­eral likely can­di­dates decided not to run — Mis­sis­sippi Gov. Haley Bar­bour and Indi­ana Gov. Mitch Daniels among them — and at least one who ruled out a race is recon­sid­er­ing. Texas Gov. Rick Perry has said he will decide after the state Leg­is­la­ture com­pletes its cur­rent ses­sion, and for­mer Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s plans are still unknown.

Gin­grich, quick off the mark in attack­ing Obama, suf­fered the mass exo­dus of the entire top ech­e­lon of his cam­paign last week, an unprece­dented event that left his chances of win­ning the nom­i­na­tion in tatters.

All seven flashed their anti-abortion cre­den­tials, and were largely uni­fied in oppo­si­tion to same-sex mar­riage, which is legal in New Hampshire.

Sev­eral praised a pro­posed amend­ment to the U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion that would define mar­riage as between one man and one woman, a posi­tion pop­u­lar among con­ser­v­a­tive vot­ers. Bach­mann said she sup­ported that, but she added that states have the right to write their own laws and said that if elected pres­i­dent, she would not step into state pol­i­tics — a nod to tea par­ty­ers who cher­ish the Constitution’s 10th Amendment.

Obama’s rivals found lit­tle if any­thing to like in what the pres­i­dent has done since tak­ing office in the midst of the worst eco­nomic reces­sion since the Great Depression.

For­mer Sen. Rick San­to­rum accused Obama of pur­su­ing “oppres­sive poli­cies” that have shack­led the economy.

For­mer Min­nesota Gov. Tim Paw­lenty labeled Obama a “declin­ist” who views Amer­ica “as one of equals around the world,” rather than a spe­cial nation.

“If Brazil can have 5 per­cent growth, if China can have 5 per­cent growth, then Amer­ica can have 5 per­cent growth,” he added, shrug­ging off crit­i­cism that his own eco­nomic pro­jec­tions were impos­si­bly rosy.

Busi­ness­man Her­man Cain, a polit­i­cal novice, called for elim­i­nat­ing the cap­i­tal gains tax as a way to stim­u­late job creation.

Rom­ney stressed his expe­ri­ence as a busi­ness­man over 25 years as evi­dence that he can lead the nation out of a lin­ger­ing recession.

Said Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, the sev­enth con­tender on the stage: “As long as we are run­ning a pro­gram that delib­er­ately weak­ens our cur­rency, our jobs will go over­seas. And that’s what’s happening.”

As front-runner of a sort, Rom­ney could well have expected crit­i­cism from his rivals.

But Paw­lenty, a few feet away on the debate stage, at first side­stepped a chance to repeat his recent crit­i­cism of Rom­ney in con­nec­tion with the Mass­a­chu­setts health care law that Rom­ney signed as gov­er­nor. It includes a require­ment for res­i­dents to pur­chase cov­er­age, a fore­run­ner of the “indi­vid­ual man­date” that con­ser­v­a­tives loath in the new fed­eral law.

“My using ‘Obam­n­ey­care’ was a reflec­tion of the president’s com­ments,” Paw­lenty said, refer­ring to a word he coined in a Sun­day interview.

Bach­mann — newest to the race — drew one of the loud­est rounds of applause Mon­day night from a par­ti­san debate audi­ence when she pre­dicted that Obama would not win re-election. He is “a one-term pres­i­dent,” she declared.

Instead, the most con­ser­v­a­tive pres­i­den­tial field in mem­ory all but said what Ronald Rea­gan once preached — that gov­ern­ment was the problem.

Rom­ney said the auto bailout was a mis­take, and said more gen­er­ally, “Instead of think­ing in the fed­eral bud­get what should we cut, we should ask our­selves the oppo­site ques­tion, ‘What should we keep?’”

San­to­rum crit­i­cized the finan­cial bailout that Pres­i­dents George W. Bush and Obama backed, and Bach­mann said she had worked in closed-door meet­ings in Con­gress to defeat the leg­is­la­tion when it was orig­i­nally passed.

Paw­lenty said politi­cians had caused the hous­ing price bub­ble that con­tributed to the reces­sion, and Paul blamed the reces­sion on the Fed­eral Reserve.

“As long as we do what we’re doing in Wash­ing­ton it’s going to last another 10 years,” Paul said. “What we’re doing now is absolutely wrong,” he said of fed­eral pro­grams meant to sup­port the hous­ing industry.

Even when they dif­fered, the White House hope­fuls did so in muted terms.

San­to­rum said he whole­heart­edly sup­ported Wis­con­sin Rep. Paul Ryan’s pro­posal to turn Medicare into a pro­gram in which the gov­ern­ment sub­si­dizes ben­e­fi­cia­ries who would seek cov­er­age from pri­vate insur­ance com­pa­nies. Under the cur­rent sys­tem, the gov­ern­ment pays doc­tors and other health care providers directly.

Paw­lenty said he would have a plan of his own that shared some fea­tures with Ryan’s but would dif­fer on other points.

The program’s finances are per­ilous, and Repub­li­can calls for fun­da­men­tal change are at the heart of a roil­ing debate in Con­gress that is expected to extend into the 2012 cam­paign for the White House and both houses of Congress.

Cain bluntly told one ques­tioner he was unlikely ever to receive in ben­e­fits from the money he has paid in through pay­roll taxes dur­ing his work­ing life.

Gin­grich, who was attacked by fel­low con­ser­v­a­tives when he crit­i­cized Ryan’s pro­posal for being manda­tory, said, “When you’re deal­ing with some­thing as big as Medicare … you bet­ter slow down. … If you can’t con­vince the Amer­i­can peo­ple it’s a good idea, maybe it’s not a good idea.”

Gin­grich, Bach­mann, Rom­ney and Paw­lenty all pledged to seek repeal of the health care law that Obama won from Con­gress ear­lier in his term. The oth­ers on stage hold the same position.

Rom­ney and Paul both said the United States should with­draw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, but dis­agreed on a timetable.

Rom­ney said that gen­er­als in Afghanistan should guide the pull­out sched­ule of Amer­i­can troops based on con­di­tions on the ground. He said the troops should come home as soon as pos­si­ble under those con­di­tions. Paul said the pres­i­dent must tell gen­er­als what to do. He said if he were pres­i­dent he would begin with­draw­ing troops almost imme­di­ately. He said the United States has no pur­pose fight­ing a war in Afghanistan.

For­mer Utah Gov. Jon Hunts­man did not par­tic­i­pate in the event. He is expected to announce his can­di­dacy within a few weeks.

Posted by AP News on Jun 13 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.