Romney Is Focus as Battle in G.O.P. Takes Sharp Edge

Romney Is Focus as Battle in G.O.P. Takes Sharp Edge
CONCORD, N.H. — The Republican race for president splintered along two distinct tracks on Sunday, with all of the candidates who are not named Mitt Romney intensifying their attempts to derail the one who is. And all the while they kept their sights trained on one another as they try to emerge as his chief rival.
Two days before the first primary of the Republican nominating process, Mr. Romney remained a solid favorite here on Tuesday and beyond. But the winnowed cast of candidates who lag behind him was hatching competing plans to outlast one another through the next few nominating contests, starting with the traditionally bruising primary in South Carolina, which votes on Jan. 21.

And so the steady jog of the last few months became a sharp-edge sprint heading out of the weekend, with barbs flying in speeches, in advertisements and in the final debate before Election Day here, which took place Sunday and included some of the most pointed exchanges of the campaign so far.

In the debate, hosted by “Meet the Press” and Facebook, Newt Gingrich disputed Mr. Romney’s assertions that he was not a lifetime politician, saying, “Can we drop a little bit of the pious baloney?”

“You have been running consistently for years and years and years,” Mr. Gingrich said, looking directly at his rival. He added: “Just level with the American people. You’ve been running for — at least since the 1990s.”

Mr. Gingrich also attacked Mr. Romney’s tenure at the private equity firm Bain Capital, accusing him of pillaging companies and cutting jobs to enrich himself and his colleagues. He compared him unfavorably with two other presidential candidates from Massachusetts: former Gov. Michael Dukakis and Senator John Kerry, both Democrats who were defeated.

Rick Santorum, a former senator from Pennsylvania, accused Mr. Romney of lacking core convictions. “We want someone when the time gets tough — and it will in this election — who will stand up for conservative principles,” he said.

Even Jon M. Huntsman Jr., a former Utah governor who has struggled to stand out in the race, scored points with the debate audience when he said Mr. Romney was out of line in attacking him for having served as President Obama’s ambassador to China. “This nation is divided,” Mr. Huntsman said, “because of attitudes like that.” He criticized Mr. Romney for his slogan “Believe in America,” saying: “How can you believe in America when you’re not willing to serve America? That’s just phony.”

Mr. Romney had been seeking to remain above it all and rely on his muscular campaign organization and get-out-the-vote operation to propel him to victory in Tuesday’s primary and beyond. But time and time again, he was forced to defend himself.

“I’m very proud of the conservative record I have,” Mr. Romney said, ticking through a list of leading Republicans supporting his candidacy who, as he put it, “don’t have any ax to grind.”

The Romney team conveyed the nervousness of a leading marathon runner, acutely aware of the potentially volatile nature of this contest, the reluctance of Republicans to unite behind a single candidate and the possibility that an anti-Romney candidate could emerge supreme to split the delegate field with Ron Paul, who is viewed as having a distinct but sizable following.

During a day of hard campaigning, Mr. Romney sought to deflect criticism of his time at Bain and to defend against derision from Mr. Gingrich and the others about his claim to be a nonpolitician. But it did not always go so smoothly. Speaking to voters at a rally in Rochester, N.H., Mr. Romney described himself as a “a high school kid like everybody else with skinny legs” who ultimately “backed into a chance” to run for president.

The son of a wealthy American Motors chief executive turned Michigan governor, Mr. Romney also said, “I know what it’s like to worry whether you’re going to get fired,” and declared, “There were a couple of times I wondered whether I was going to get a pink slip.”

Afterward, his campaign could not provide specific examples, though a spokeswoman, Andrea Saul, said in a statement that “as a young person just out of college, he worked his way up the career ladder knowing that his continued employment was by no means guaranteed.”

For months, Democrats have been trying to use Mr. Romney’s pedigree against him, seeking to tap into the boiling anger over wealth disparities resonating with voters. As the presidential primary campaign intensifies, his Republican rivals are highlighting the same theme, suggesting that Mr. Romney is out of touch with Americans.