Romney back in presidential race after feisty debate

A CONFIDENT Mitt Romney criticised his Republican rivals and fended off attacks at a feisty deb-ate that could help reinstall him as the party’s presidential frontrunner.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, slugged it out with Texas governor Rick Perry and overshadowed Herman Cain, his two main challengers for the nomination to take on President Barack Obama in 2012. Perry finally showed signs of life after four shaky debates and Cain suffered no knockout blows.

Seeking to convince sceptical conservatives to get behind him, Romney fought off a number of attacks from Perry.

Polls show Romney has the best chance of any Republican of defeating Obama, whose approval ratings have dropped as he struggles to revive the economy and cut the US unemployment rate from 9%.

But pizza magnate Cain has headed recent polls of Republicans, many of whom think Romney is not conservative enough to deserve the nomination.

During the debate, however, Cain struggled to explain how middle-income Americans would avoid paying higher taxes under his signature “9-9-9” tax reform plan.

Romney, a far more confident and polished debater than when he ran for the nomination in 2008, put Perry on the defensive over an evangelical pastor with ties to the Texas governor who criticised Mormonism.

“The idea that we should choose people, based on their religion, for public office is what I find to be most troubling,” said Romney, a Mormon.

Perry replied he did not agree with what the preacher had said, but felt he had the right to express his opinion.

Tempers boiled over on the issue of illegal immigration.

The two men pointed fingers and shouted over each other as Perry brought up a story from Romney’s 2008 campaign, that he had hired a contractor that employed illegal Latin American workers to work on Romney’s lawn. Romney fired the company when he found out about the undocumented workers.

“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,” said Perry.

But Romney hit back, saying: “Texas has had a 60% increase in illegal immigrants in Texas. If there’s someone who has a record as governor with regards to illegal immigration that doesn’t stand up to muster, it’s you, not me.”

Rivals again brought up the healthcare plan Romney fathered as governor of Massachusetts that Democrat Obama has said was a model for the 2010 overhaul the White House engineered, which conservatives want to repeal.

The Massachusetts plan is perhaps Romney’s biggest Achilles heel in persuading conservatives he is one of them.