THE LEADING candidates for the Republican presidential nomination defended themselves against attacks by less favoured rivals in the 13th and last televised debate before the January 3rd Iowa caucuses.
The former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was criticised by Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul on Thursday night for payments he received from a government-backed mortgage agency, for influence-peddling and his supposed inability to defeat US president Barack Obama.
After berating Mr Gingrich as an “inconsistent” and “zany” conservative this week, Mr Romney reverted to the persona of a dull businessman who is best placed to defeat Mr Obama.
Mr Romney may be regaining the ground he lost to Mr Gingrich. South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, a favourite of the right-wing Tea Party, yesterday endorsed Mr Romney, which could help him win over reluctant conservatives. The two were scheduled to appear together late yesterday in South Carolina, which will hold the third state-wide election, on January 21st, after Iowa and New Hampshire.
Mr Gingrich has led polls by a comfortable margin for the past two weeks, but Mr Romney edged ahead of him in a Rasmussen poll of Iowa voters published late on Thursday. Mr Paul and Ms Bachmann could be helped by the fervour they demonstrated in challenging Messrs Romney and Gingrich. Mr Romney admitted he had changed his position on abortion, and claimed it was consistent for him to advocate tolerance of same-sex couples while opposing gay marriage.
“I’ve learned over time, like Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush and others, my experience in life over 17, 18, 19 years has told me that sometimes I was wrong,” Mr Romney said. “Where I was wrong, I tried to correct myself.”
In an earlier debate, before his ties to Freddie Mac were revealed by Bloomberg News, Mr Gingrich said politicians who connived with government-backed mortgage lenders should be jailed.
“The speaker had his hand out and was taking $1.6 million dollars to influence senior Republicans to keep the scam going in Washington, DC,” Ms Bachmann said of Gingrich.
“I never lobbied under any circumstance,” Mr Gingrich said. “I was a national figure who was doing just fine doing a whole variety of things, including writing bestselling books, making speeches, and the fact is, I only worked with people whose values I shared.”
Mr Gingrich twice accused Ms Bachmann of getting her facts wrong. “Sometimes the congresswoman doesn’t get her facts very accurate,” he said the second time. Ms Bachmann fired back indignantly: “I think it’s outrageous to continue to say over and over through the debates that I don’t have my facts right when, as a matter of fact, I do. I am a serious candidate for president of the United States and my facts are accurate.”
The Republican party has moved so far to the right that Mr Gingrich, the author of the 1994 Contract With America, called the "godfather of gridlock" by Mr Obama's advisers, is now considered suspect. "It's sort of laughable to suggest that somebody who campaigned with Ronald Reagan and had a 30-year record of conservatism is somehow not a conservative," he said.
Mr Paul is the only Republican candidate who questions US support for Israel and opposes using force to stop the Iranian nuclear programme.
“It’s another Iraq coming,” Mr Paul predicted. “It’s war propaganda coming. To me, the greatest danger is we will have a president who will overreact.”
“We know without a shadow of a doubt that Iran will take a nuclear weapon,” Ms Bachmann countered. “They will use it to wipe our ally, Israel, off the face of the map and they’ve stated they will use it against the US.”