Romney confirmed as Republican frontrunner

MITT ROMNEY and Herman Cain delivered feisty performances, while Rick Perry faded into the background in the Republican presidential debate on the US economy in New Hampshire on Tuesday night.

Romney, a wealthy businessman and the former governor of Massachusetts, confirmed his place as frontrunner, though he struggles to fire up enthusiasm among Republicans. Cain, the former chief executive of Godfather’s Pizza and an African-American, strengthened his hold on the number two slot.

Perry, the governor of Texas who briefly surpassed Romney in polls last month, refused to outline his economic plan, which is based on oil and gas exploration, saying he will do so in a speech in Pittsburgh tomorrow. “Mitt has had six years to be working on a plan,” Perry said. “I’ve been in this for about eight weeks.” Commenting on his pathetic performance at a Dartmouth College fraternity house after the debate, Perry said debating just wasn’t his strong point.

A few hours before the debate, Romney benefited from the endorsement of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Most of the eight Republican candidates had sought Christie’s blessing after the popular and outspoken governor announced last week that he will not be a candidate.

“America cannot survive another four years of Barack Obama,” Christie said at a joint press conference with Romney in New Hampshire. “And Mitt Romney is the man we need to lead America.”

Republicans don’t fall in love; they fall in line, an old political saying goes. Romney’s supporters hope that Christie’s endorsement will induce the party establishment to fall in line behind his candidacy.

Christie defended Romney’s passage of a universal healthcare Bill in Massachusetts, upon which Obama modelled his own reform. The Perry campaign’s criticism of what it calls “Romneycare” was “completely intellectually dishonest”, Christie said.

Christie’s support prompted speculation that Romney might choose him as a running mate, though Christie denied there was a deal between them.

When Perry raised healthcare in the debate, Romney rounded on him, saying that Massachusetts has “the lowest number of kids uninsured, less than 1 per cent,” while Texas has one million uninsured children, “the highest number” in the US. “I care about people,” Romney said.

Each candidate was allowed to ask one question of the candidate of their choice. Four of his seven challengers addressed their question to Romney, which meant he spoke longer and more often than anyone else.

At his press conference with Christie, Romney demanded that Perry distance himself from a southern Baptist pastor who says Mormonism – Romney’s faith – is a non-Christian “cult”. Romney’s assertiveness, and his refusal to back down on his support for the Wall Street bailout, are taken as a signs that he will not move further right in the hope of winning over social conservatives.

It was symptomatic of the dearth of ideas in the campaign that Cain’s proposal for a “9-9-9” tax system which would impose nine per cent corporate, sales and income tax on all Americans was the main topic of the first half of the debate, raised at least 15 times.

Other candidates mocked the plan, but Cain defended it strongly. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, the founder of the House Tea Party caucus, joked that if she turned “9-9-9” upside down, “the devil is in the details”. She criticised the plan for providing a new stream of revenue to Congress, noting that a tax imposed at the time of the 1898 Spanish-American war was only rescinded in the last decade.

Jon Huntsman, the former governor of Utah and former ambassador to China, dismissed “9-9-9” as a “catchy phrase” and joked that he’d thought it was the price of a pizza. Cain fired back, “It didn’t come off a pizza box, no.” Cain attempted to challenge Romney by asking whether he could name all 59 points in his own economic plan.

“Herman, I have had the experience in my life of taking on some tough problems,” Romney replied with the air of a weary school teacher. “And I must admit that simple answers are always very helpful, but oftentimes inadequate.”