LEAD: Romney under attack as gloves off in Republican nominee race

By Pat Reber Jan 8, 2012, 17:33 GMT

Washington/Concord, New Hampshire - Gloves came off Sunday against Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney as rivals attacked his claim to having created jobs as a private businessman, and demanded to know why he had not run for a second term as governor of Massachusetts.

The uptick of harsh rhetoric sharply contrasted with the polite atmosphere of the previous evening's debate, when main rivals - Congressman Ron Paul, 76, and former Senator Rick Santorum, 53, - avoided direct confrontation.

The back-to-back debates in Manchester and Concord lead up to Tuesday's important New Hampshire primary vote, where six Republicans are vying for their party's nomination to face off against Democratic President Barack Obama in November's presidential elections.

Romney, 64, has escaped most of the rough and tumble of last year's run up to the campaign, when successive front runners were brought down by personal revelations and attack ads. He has sailed above the fray with his focus on job creation and supposed record of producing new jobs as head of a private investment company he founded, Bain Capital.

Now with polls showing Romney could claim as much as 40 per cent of New Hampshire's primary votes, his more conservative rivals finally turned up their invective.

Former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, 68, referred to revelations in the New York Times and Washington Post - two liberal newspapers he usually disparages - that under Romney's management of Bain, companies were repeatedly ravaged and their employees fired while Romney and other investors became multimillionaires.

Gingrich, who lags in New Hampshire with 8.6 per cent support in the polls, boasted of a 27-minute campaign film in the works that will document Romney's true business record. Some excerpts from the film have already run in short pro-Gingrich ads.

Gingrich also went after Romney for not running for a second term as Massachusetts governor in 2007, dismissing as 'pious baloney' Romney's explanation that he wanted to return to private business after four years of public service.

'You had a bad re-election rating, you'd been out of the state while running for president while you were governor,' Gingrich charged, referring to Romney's failed bid for his party's presidential nod in 2008.

The escalating rhetoric signals the approaching battle in New Hampshire, and those in South Carolina and Florida later this month. A New Hampshire win is more significant than last week's Iowa caucus, where Romney squeaked past the more conservative Santorum with an eight-vote lead and Paul came in not far behind.

'This is the Khyber pass of American poltiics,' said pundit Howard Fineman on NBC news after the debate, referring to New Hampshire. 'Everyone is firing at you from the hills. Things happen here late. The ground moves in New Hampshire on the last weekend.'

Foreign policy sparked a few spats in Saturday night's debate, as Romney declared that as president, he would move immediately to stop what he called China's economic plunder of the US economy. 'I will tell China, 'You cannot kill our jobs',' Romney declared, adding he would put an end to China's alleged manipulation of its currency to keep prices of exports low.

That provoked a warning from former US ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, 51, that such a move would 'lead to a trade war.'

Romney also said he would not send US troops back into Iraq, countering a pledge by Texas Governor Rick Perry to re-enter Iraq to defend it from Iran's influence.

'The hurdle to put our troops in harm's way is very, very high,' Romney vowed.