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BLYTHEWOOD, S.C. ? Mitt Romney has ex-POW John McCain vouching for him. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum highlights his time on the Senate Armed Services Committee. And former House Speaker Newt Gingrich frequently calls himself an “Army brat” who grew up on military bases.

While Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Texas Rep. Ron Paul are the only GOP candidates to have worn a military uniform, all of the Republican presidential contenders are emphasizing their military ties these days in a state that’s home to 413,000 veterans and eight military bases, with thousands of people on active duty.

“My purpose in life was to never be the president of the United States,” Perry says as he campaigns ahead of South Carolina’s primary Saturday. “My purpose has always been to serve my country and my state whenever they need or they call. That’s our duty as Americans.”

Perry’s days as an Air Force pilot in the 1970s and his father’s B-17 tail-gunner missions in World War II are staples of his South Carolina message as he looks to right his struggling campaign.

Paul, a flight surgeon in the 1960s who made his name as an antiwar congressman, is filling mailboxes with five-page letters that include a picture of him as a young draftee in a full-brimmed Air Force hat. “Let me begin by telling you that the troops know first and foremost that I am one of them,” he writes.

There’s a reason for the intensive courting: As long as South Carolina has been instrumental in deciding GOP nominees, the state’s voters have rewarded candidates with military service. Every GOP primary winner since Ronald Reagan in 1980 has been a veteran.

This year may end that streak. Polls show Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, leading the pack. With the economy pushing U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts to the back of voters’ concerns, some in South Carolina argue that GOP voters aren’t pining for the biggest hawk this time.

“Financially, people are in dire straits right now,” said state Sen. Lee Bright, a backer of Michele Bachmann before she left the race. “They realize that the more money we spend overseas the less money they are going to spend at home.”

Nonetheless, most of the candidates have spent considerable time along the South Carolina coastline, wooing active-duty military members and veterans ? many of whom lean toward the GOP ? clustered around the bases near Charleston that for many years fueled the state’s economy.

Perry, for one, has struck an aggressive posture lately, pledging that as president he would send troops back to Iraq to prevent Iran from exerting too much muscle in the region. On one upstate swing, he solemnly inspected a memorial garden and read markers to five Medal of Honor winners. He was accompanied by a former Marine captain with burn scars over half his body from the explosive device that hit his vehicle in Iraq and killed some of his comrades.

That veteran, Dan Moran, delivered a full-throated endorsement of Perry before a rapt audience. “For what it’s worth, coming from somebody who had the honor and privilege of being able to spill some blood for his country, this is the man and this is the time,” Moran said. “This country needs him.”

Perry also has tried the personal touch, at one point pulling up a chair at voter Linwood Mizell’s table to share more with the Army veteran and Purple Heart recipient.

Despite the special attention, Mizell held back. “I really haven’t totally made up my mind,” he said.

Romney, for his part, has campaigned with McCain, the 2008 GOP presidential nominee and Vietnam veteran, and seems to talk up the military everywhere he goes in the state.

“This is a proud military state,” Romney said Saturday in Sumter. A day earlier, Romney was on Hilton Head Island for a veterans’ event attended by hundreds.

Meanwhile, Santorum has traveled the state arguing that Democratic President Barack Obama is determined to shrink the Pentagon. The Republican insists the cuts will hurt national security and he often seeks out spouses and parents of military members to hear their concerns.

“I will not cut defense,” Santorum pledged recently in Charleston. “I will not reduce the budget deficit by cutting the central role of the federal government. In fact, I will allow the Defense Department to grow to make sure that we are not cutting the benefits and the pay of our men and women in uniform.”

___

Associated Press writers Philip Elliott, Jim Davenport and Julie Pace contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/usmilitary/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120118/ap_on_el_pr/us_campaign_military_pitch

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WASHINGTON ? What gives? Some of Mitt Romney’s rivals are waging a fierce attack that you’d never think would come from the mouths of Republicans who claim Ronald Reagan as their hero. They’re blasting the GOP front-runner for aggressive, wealth-creating business tactics.

The criticism, mostly from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, didn’t seem to matter much in New Hampshire, where Romney claimed a comfortable primary victory. Gingrich was fourth and Perry was sixth.

But the sniping may have more resonance in next-in-line South Carolina, which is far more economically depressed, and in Florida. Both states are struggling with high joblessness and weak housing markets. South Carolina’s primary is Jan. 21, Florida’s is Jan. 31.

Trying to tap into populist sentiment, Gingrich and Perry are accusing Romney of being a fat-cat venture capitalist during his days running the private equity firm Bain Capital, laying off workers as he restructured companies and filled his own pockets.

A group backing Gingrich is airing TV ads in South Carolina showing distraught people who say they lost their jobs to Bain’s restructuring practices while Romney was at the helm.

Jon Huntsman, a former Utah governor and ambassador to China, at first joined Gingrich and Perry in the attacks on Romney. But on Wednesday after his third-place finish in New Hampshire, Huntsman backed away in part from such criticism while continuing to assail Romney’s four years as Massachusetts governor.

The Bain Capital attacks are nearly identical to criticism once leveled at Romney by one of the nation’s best-known Democrats, Ted Kennedy, when Romney tried to claim Kennedy’s Massachusetts Senate seat in 1994. Whether that tactic helped or not, Kennedy, who died in 2009, did hold on to his seat.

To hear such accusations now from Republicans ? historically the party of business and free enterprise ? is particularly notable.

“It’s like watching dogs walk on their hind feet. It’s not impossible, but it certainly looks odd when you see it,” said economist Bruce Bartlett, who worked in the Republican administrations of Reagan and George H.W. Bush. “I don’t think they seriously believe there is anything wrong with what Romney did. I just think that they’re trying to use any card that they can find in the deck that might give them an edge. It’s simple expediency.”

Romney has shrugged off the fusillade.

“We understood for a long time that the Obama people would come after free enterprise.” he told reporters as he flew from New Hampshire to South Carolina on Wednesday. “We’re a little surprised to see Newt Gingrich as the first witness for the prosecution.”

Romney has repeatedly touted his business career as giving him the right credentials for dealing with a tough economy and the know-how to produce jobs. However, in the process of restructuring companies to make them more profitable, many workers indeed were laid off. The criticism from fellow Republicans now threatens to undercut Romney’s central argument that his private-sector experience best positions him to defeat Democratic President Barack Obama in the fall.

Gingrich, mounting the fiercest attacks, denies he’s arguing against capitalism.

“I am totally for capitalism. … I do draw a distinction between (it) and looting a company,” says the former House speaker. He also asks, “Is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of other people and walk off with the money?”

Gingrich was a little more subdued on Wednesday. Without naming the former Massachusetts governor, Gingrich said at a campaign event in Rock Hill S.C., that he wants “free enterprise that is honest. I want a free enterprise system that is accountable.”

Perry, meanwhile, who earlier called Romney a “vulture capitalist,” struck a defensive tone on Wednesday. At a stop outside Columbia, S.C., the Texas governor said, “I understand restructuring. I understand these types of things.” But, he added, “The idea that we can’t criticize someone for these get-rich-quick schemes is inappropriate from my perspective.”

Huntsman in the past has asserted that “Governor Romney enjoys firing people. I enjoy creating jobs.” But on Wednesday, he presented himself to South Carolina Republicans as a pragmatic problem solver who disdains partisan posturing.

“If you have creative destruction in capitalism, which has always been part of capitalism, it becomes a little disingenuous to take on Bain Capital,” Huntsman told reporters in Columbia. Instead, he said Romney should be judged on his record as governor when “he didn’t deliver any big bold economic proposals.”

The next two weeks are what Romney’s foes are interested in, with the key primaries in South Carolina and Florida. The Bain Capital attacks have opened a rift among Republicans, with many conservative groups and personalities urging Gingrich and the others to tone it down.

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh said Gingrich’s language was “out of bounds for those who value the free market.” Club for Growth President Chris Chocola called the attacks “disgusting.” Steve Judge, CEO of the Private Equity Growth Capital Council, cited “a lot of misinformation” from both parties ignoring benefits to the economy from firms such as Bain.

The harsh attacks on Romney reflect the tea party influence on GOP politics, residual anger against financial practices that led to the 2008 economic crisis and government bailouts and a widespread desire among conservative Republicans to find an alternative to Romney. They also come as the Republican Party becomes increasingly blue collar.

But one rising tea party star who has endorsed Romney, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, said she doesn’t like the criticism of his business practices. “It’s a sad day in South Carolina and across this country if Republicans are talking against the free market. Let me tell you that,” she said.

Romney was defended on Wednesday by Democrat Steven Rattner, a financier who helped lead the Obama administration’s bailout and restructuring of Chrysler and General Motors. He told MSNBC that, while he intends to vote for Obama, “I think these attacks are unfair. I think Mitt Romney not only had a very successful (business) career, but Bain Capital is a terrific first-class firm managing money, mostly for endowments, for pension funds. … And he did it in a perfectly honorable way.”

Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who finished second in New Hampshire, and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who finished fifth, have avoided slamming Romney for his Bain record. Santorum even defended Romney at a town hall meeting Wednesday night in Columbia, S.C.

“It’s this hostile rhetoric, which unfortunately ? and I don’t want to stand here and be a defender of Mitt Romney ? but unfortunately even some in our own party now, even some running for president will engage in with respect to capitalism,” Santorum said. “It’s bad enough for Barack Obama to blame folks in business for causing problems in this country. It’s one other thing for Republicans to join in on this.”

Paul told The Washington Times that “it astounds me” that Gingrich and the others would rip Romney’s work as a venture capitalist. “Either they are totally ignorant of economics,” he said, “or if they know economics it’s just demagoguing for narrow political points.”

“It’s strange for Republicans to go after a colleague who’s successful in business. The arguments by Newt Gingrich could be made by the far left of the Democratic Party,” said James Thurber, a political scientist at American University.

Romney has said that, on balance, he took steps that led to the creation of 100,000 jobs.

However, that claim comes from activities concerning only three companies, all of them successes: Staples, Domino’s and Sports Authority. And it counts many jobs that were created after Romney left Bain in 1999. And it ignores job losses at many other firms that Bain invested in or took over.

___

Associated Press writers Kasie Hunt, Charles Babington, Jim Davenport and Shannon McCaffrey in South Carolina contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120112/ap_on_el_ge/us_free_market_fight

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MANCHESTER, N.H. ? Mitt Romney is cruising in the Republican presidential contest, blessed by five rivals who continue to attack each other and divide the anti-Romney vote rather than produce a single strong alternative.

That dynamic allowed Romney to stand and smile during long stretches of two televised debates this weekend, while the others ripped one another. With his opposition so diffuse, the former Massachusetts governor has a chance to do something that once seemed improbable: win the South Carolina primary Jan. 21, which would make him the prohibitive favorite for the nomination

Time is running out for staunch conservatives, who have viewed Romney with suspicion, to settle on someone. The crowded field helped Romney to a whisker-thin victory this past week in Iowa, although his plurality was modest.

He long has been favored to win Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, so his critics hope South Carolina will stop his momentum. Romney’s Mormonism and past support of abortion rights might hurt him among South Carolina’s evangelical voters.

Iowa wasn’t considered an ideal fit for Romney, either, yet the stars aligned for him. It might happen again.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry flirted with dropping out after his poor showing in Iowa, but he stayed in. So did former House Speaker Newt Gingrich despite a disappointing fourth-place finish.

No one expected former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum to drop out after he essentially tied Romney in Iowa. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas runs a libertarian-oriented campaign that almost stands apart, drawing thousands of devotees who say they won’t support any nominee except the congressman.

Meanwhile, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who skipped Iowa, is trying hard in New Hampshire.

The upshot is that the not-Romney sentiment remains dispersed among five rivals. The benefit to Romney was vivid in Saturday night’s debate, when Paul engaged in long, heated exchanges with Santorum and Gingrich, as if they had conceded the race to Romney and were fighting for second.

Perry seemed almost an afterthought.

“Romney did everything he wanted and got out of there without anyone giving him a hard time,” said a delighted John Sununu, the former New Hampshire governor who backs Romney.

In Sunday’s debate, Gingrich and Santorum seemed to realize that Romney had gotten off too easy the night before.

Gingrich asked Romney to stop the “pious baloney” of claiming he’s not a lifelong politician, noting that Romney extended his time in business by losing a Senate race in 1994 and a presidential bid in 2008. Gingrich, citing news reports, said a corporate takeover firm once headed by Romney “looted a company, leaving behind 1,700 unemployed people.”

Santorum attacked Romney’s conservative convictions. “We want someone who’s going to stand up and fight for the conservative principles,” he said, “and not run to the left of Ted Kennedy,” the late Democratic senator who beat Romney in 1994.

Romney defended himself and counter-punched a bit. But the fireworks soon moved to Santorum’s offensive against Paul. Romney watched contentedly, like a football coach running out the clock with a solid lead.

It’s still possible for Romney to lose the nomination. But it won’t happen unless one rival consolidates the opposition vote and sends the others home.

A group of evangelical leaders plans to meet in Texas to pursue such a strategy. There’s no guarantee of success, however, because Santorum, Perry and Gingrich all make strong claims on conservatives’ loyalties. They also have serious shortcomings.

Perry, who promotes a fiscally lean record in Texas, led an August “call to prayer for a nation in crisis” in Houston, which drew 30,000 people. He seemed poised to become the non-Romney champion when he entered the race that month, but he quickly faded after poor debate performances.

Many conservatives revere Gingrich for leading the 1994 “Republican Revolution,” which gave the party control of the House and began an era of partisan battles with President Bill Clinton and other Democrats. But Gingrich’s House career ended in ethics and political woes. His later deviations from conservative orthodoxy on climate change, entitlement cuts and other issues have angered some on the right.

Santorum was largely overlooked until his last-minute surge in Iowa. He is a longtime advocate of home schooling, anti-abortion efforts and other endeavors dear to many conservatives. But Santorum lost his 2006 bid for a third Senate term from Pennsylvania in a landslide. His ability to raise money and withstand the rigors of a nationwide race is unproven.

Romney doesn’t have to win in South Carolina to remain the front-runner. The next contest is Jan. 31 in Florida, a sprawling state where his campaign money and organization could help him tremendously.

While Romney watches his rivals batter each other, President Barack Obama leaves little doubt about which Republican he sees as his likely opponent. During Sunday’s GOP debate, the Obama campaign, under the president’s name and photo, tweeted: “Romney said during last night’s debate that he wants to give relief to the middle class. But his tax plan wouldn’t.”

Conservatives who don’t want a Romney-Obama matchup in November will have to act soon.

___

EDITOR’S NOTE ? Charles Babington covers politics for The Associated Press.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politicsopinion/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120108/ap_on_an/us_gop_campaign_analysis

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CONCORD, N.H. ? Mitt Romney’s rivals have one more chance to bruise the front-runner ahead of Tuesday’s voting during a Sunday morning faceoff just hours after he largely brushed aside their criticism in the opening round of a weekend debate doubleheader.

The six GOP hopefuls are set to spar one final time before voters go to the polls Tuesday in New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary.

They met onstage in nearby Manchester less than 12 hours earlier. That Saturday night contest left Romney’s rivals squabbling among themselves and unable to knock him off stride.

Romney, in turn, largely ignored his fellow Republicans and focused instead on President Barack Obama.

“His policies have made the recession deeper and his policies have made the recovery more tepid,” he said, despite a declining unemployment rate and the creation of 200,000 jobs last month.

Over the course of the lively 90-minute debate, there were attacks aplenty as Romney’s GOP opponents vied to emerge as his principal rival in the primaries ahead. Romney won an eight-vote victory in the Iowa caucuses last Tuesday and is far ahead in the pre-primary polls in New Hampshire.

That leaves his pursuers little time to stop his rise, and, all but conceding New Hampshire to the former governor of next-door Massachusetts, they’re mostly focusing their efforts on the South Carolina primary on Jan. 21.

Romney, who often touts his business background, was attacked in the opening minutes of the debate.

Rick Santorum went first, dismissing him as a mere manager.

“Being a president is not a CEO. You’ve got to lead and inspire,” he said.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich followed a few moments later, referring to published accounts that described how some workers were laid off after Bain Capital, the firm Romney once led, invested in their companies and sought to turn them around by cutting staff and firing workers.

He said Romney should be judged on the basis of whether “on balance, were people better off or worse off by this style of management.”

In reply, Romney said Bain had created 100,000 jobs, and that a businessman’s experience was far better to fix the economy than a career spent in Washington.

“I’m very proud of the fact that the two enterprises I led were successful,” he said, referring to Bain and another firm.

More than an hour later, Romney turned one question about his vision for the country into an attack on Obama that is part of his standard campaign speech. While his rivals stood by silently, he accused the president of trying to turn the United States into a “European-style welfare state.”

Texas Rep. Ron Paul, meanwhile, assailed Santorum as a “big government person,” an allegation the former Pennsylvania senator disputed. Santorum, a social conservative, finished a close second to Romney in Iowa this week, with Paul coming in third.

Gingrich was fourth in Iowa, Texas Gov. Rick Perry fifth and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, who has since quit the race, finished last. Jon Huntsman, a former governor of Utah, did not compete there, putting his effort into trying to make a good showing in New Hampshire.

The skirmishes reflected the state of the race: Romney the acknowledged front-runner under attack from his rivals, who face an increasingly urgent need to emerge as his main conservative challenger.

Saturday’s debate at Saint Anselm College was the first in more than three weeks, and the first since Bachmann’s departure.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120108/ap_on_el_pr/us_republicans_debate

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SPARTANBURG, S.C. ? Republican candidates will challenge President Barack Obama on foreign policy, an issue they have given scant attention in recent weeks, as they gather Saturday for their second debate in four days.

Consumed by events on the home front, two contenders are fighting to mend damaged campaigns. Texas Gov. Rick Perry blundered in a debate Wednesday, when he couldn’t remember one of the Cabinet departments he has proposed to abolish. Rival Herman Cain is battling a series of sexual harassment allegations.

Their troubles leave Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, in a stronger position. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has also seen his fortunes improve, reflected in a CBS News poll released Friday that had him tied with Romney for No. 2 behind Cain.

Cain, in an effort to steer the conversation away from the sexual harassment allegations, played up his faith earlier Saturday. He told a young Republicans meeting in Atlanta that God convinced him to run for president.

“I’m a man of faith ? I had to do a lot of praying for this one, more praying than I’ve ever done before in my life,” Cain said. “And when I finally realized that it was God saying that this is what I needed to do, I was like Moses. `You’ve got the wrong man, Lord. Are you sure?’”

Gingrich was campaigning Saturday at nearby Furman University and opening his campaign’s South Carolina headquarters. The latest to benefit from party conservatives’ quest for an alternative to Romney, Gingrich is rebuilding his campaign after his top aides quit in the spring and now has nine paid staffers in South Carolina

Perry, an early leader in national polls, had been struggling to prove to supporters he could still win the nomination. Then he froze onstage Wednesday, when he drew a blank on the third federal agency he would kill as president.

“The third agency of government I would do away with ? the Education, the Commerce. And let’s see. I can’t. The third one, I can’t,” Perry said. “Oops.”

He spent the time since doing damage control with a blitz of interviews and a cameo on David Letterman’s show, where he delivered a Top 10 list of excuses for his mistake. (“One was the nerves, two was the headache and three was, and three, uh, uh. Oops.”)

When they have confronted foreign policy, Republicans have criticized President Barack Obama over his efforts to close out the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, his support for NATO’s intervention in Libya and his treatment of China’s currency, among other issues.

The Obama camp believes foreign policy offers a strong platform for the president, who left Friday on a nine-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region.

. Also onstage will be Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman. The volatile GOP field has seen contenders surge ahead in national polls only to fall behind.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111112/ap_on_el_pr/us_republicans_debate

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