Minnesota rivals Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann sparred bitterly Thursday night during an eight-candidate Republican debate, trying to break out of the GOP presidential pack ahead of an Iowa test vote with huge consequences. Each seeks to become the main challenger to Republican front-runner Mitt Romney.
Their efforts were newly complicated by Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who stole some of the spotlight from afar by making it known hours before the debate that he was running for the GOP nomination.
Mr. Romney, a multimillionaire businessman who casts himself as a jobs creator, made his own stir earlier in the day when, at the Iowa State Fair, he declared that “corporations are people,” drawing ridicule from Democrats.
Those were just the latest twists in the most consequential week yet in the 2012 Republican presidential nomination fight.
In the two-hour debate, the squabbling by Mr. Pawlenty and Ms. Bachmann allowed Mr. Romney, the GOP front-runner making his second presidential bid, to remain above the fray and emerge relatively unscathed by his rivals.
Though every debate participant assailed President Barack Obama, it was clear from the confrontations between Mr. Pawlenty, a former Minnesota governor, and Ms. Bachmann, now a member of Congress, who had the most on the line ahead of Saturday's straw poll that could well winnow the field.
On stage just a few minutes, Mr. Pawlenty, who is struggling to gain traction despite spending years laying the groundwork for his campaign, accused Ms. Bachmann of achieving nothing significant in Congress, lacking executive experience and having a history of fabrications.
“She's got a record of misstating and making false statements,” Mr. Pawlenty said.
Bachmann, who has risen in polls since entering the race this summer and has eclipsed Mr. Pawlenty, quickly responded with a list of what she called Mr. Pawlenty's liberal policies when he was Minnesota's governor, including his support for legislation to curb industrial emissions.
“You said the era of small government is over,” she told Mr. Pawlenty. “That sounds a lot like Barack Obama if you ask me.”
Much of the rest of the debate was heavily focused on the Democratic incumbent, with Romney and his seven rivals each seeking to prove he or she was the strongest Republican to take on Obama.
“I'm not going to eat Barack Obama's dog food,” Mr. Romney said when asked whether he would have vetoed the compromise legislation that Congress gave to the president that raised the debt ceiling. “What he served up is not what I would have done if I'd had been president of the United States.”
Notably absent from the eight-candidate spectacle were Mr. Perry, who was in Texas preparing for a weekend announcement tour to early primary states, and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who isn't a candidate but was stoking presidential speculation anew with a visit to the Iowa State Fair.
The nation's teetering economic situation shadowed the debate, with stock market volatility and a downgrade in the U.S. credit rating giving Republicans ample opportunities to criticize Mr. Obama. The Democratic president will get his shot to counter the criticism next week during a Midwestern bus tour that will take him through this state that helped launch him on the path to the White House four years ago.
On Thursday, he, too, tried to align himself with a public fed up with economic uncertainty and Washington gridlock. “There is nothing wrong with our country. There is something wrong with our politics,” he declared in Michigan, where he was touring an advanced-battery factory
In Iowa Thursday night, the Republicans commanded the spotlight.
Seven candidates — Mr. Pawlenty, Ms. Bachmann, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and businessman Herman Cain — sought to separate themselves from the packed field and emerge as the chief alternative to Mr. Romney.
Mr. Pawlenty, who hesitated in a June debate to criticize the former Massachusetts governor, this time accused him of sharing views with Mr. Obama on spending and health care. “We're going to have to show contrast, not similarities” with the incumbent president, Mr. Pawlenty said.
