LAS VEGAS — In the most explosive Republican presidential debate yet, candidates on Tuesday opened fire on former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who has clung to frontrunner status despite a string of surges from other hopefuls, most recently businessman Herman Cain.
At the start of the debate all eyes were on Cain, who in recent days rose to the top of the polls and even beat President Obama by two points in a new national poll. But after a round of robust attacks on Cain’s 9-9-9 tax plan, attention quickly shifted to Romney.
Former Sen. Rick Santorum, who is polling in the single digits, questioned Romney’s pledge to undo President Obama’s health care reforms given that Romney enacted similar health care initiatives as governor of Massachusetts.
“You just don’t have credibility, Mitt, when it comes to repealing Obamacare,” Santorum said. “Your plan was the basis for Obamacare. Your consultants helped Obama craft Obamacare. And to say that you’re going to repeal it, you have no track record on that, that we can trust you that you’re going to do that.”
Romney, somewhat flustered, defended himself.
“It was something crafted for a state,” Romney said. ” And I’ve said time and again, Obamacare is bad news. It’s unconstitutional. It costs way too much money, a trillion dollars. And if I’m president of the United States, I will repeal it for the American people.”
The most volatile exchanges of the evening, however, were between Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry with the two men going nose-to-nose at several points, talking over each other and accusing each other of being untruthful.
Perry, needing a strong showing to improve his standing in the polls, sparked a bitter exchange by accusing Romney of hiring illegal immigrants to work at his home.
“Mitt, you lose all of your standing, from my perspective, because you hired illegals in your home and you knew about it for a year,” Perry said. “And the idea that you stand here before us and talk about that you’re strong on immigration is on its face the height of hypocrisy.”
Romney said he’d been unaware that members of a lawn crew were illegal, but objected to the company when he found out.
“This has been a tough couple of debates for Rick, and I understand that,” Romney said. “And so you’re going to get testy.”
Tuesday’s debate, put on by CNN and the Western Republican Leadership Conference, was the eighth for the Republican candidates.
Cain for the most part escaped serious damage during the opening attacks on him by other candidates, though he continued to offer only a vague explanation of his tax plan, which, among other things, would create a 9 percent national sales tax.
Noting that Nevada residents already pay an 8.1 percent sales tax, Romney said Cain would effectively raise that to 17 percent.
“The thing that I would encourage people to do before they engage in this knee-jerk reaction is read our analysis,” Cain said.
Cain also stumbled on foreign policy, suggesting earlier in the day that he would exchange prisoners at Guantanamo Bay for an American prisoner.
Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, who is trailing in the polls, accused Cain of being “naive,” on the subject.
After the debate, Cain told CNN he “misspoke” and would, in fact, not agree to such a deal because it was the equivalent of negotiating with terrorists.
