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Five Republican presidential candidates took their final shots at each other in their last debate before New Hampshire voters go to the polls tomorrow. At the Fox News forum the former front-runner in that state, Mitt Romney, fought back against his two most threatening rivals, John McCain and Mike Huckabee. The Republicans sparred on taxes, spending, and the buzzword of this year's campaign, change.
NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson reports.
MARA LIASSON: Mitt Romney was on offense last night after being pounded by his rivals in a debate on Saturday night for being a flip-flopper. Last night he attacked both John McCain and Mike Huckabee on a subject close to the hearts of Republicans in this traditionally tax-averse state. Romney pointed out that McCain was one of the two Republican senators who had voted against the Bush tax cuts.
Mr. MITT ROMNEY (Former Republican Governor, Massachusetts; Presidential Candidate): So, you have a choice. You can select somebody who wants to fight for those things or you can select somebody who's actually done those things. And I've got a record of cutting spending and cutting taxes.
LIASSON: McCain responded.
Senator JOHN McCAIN (Republican, Arizona; Presidential Candidate): Look, ask Jack Abramoff, who's in prison today, a guy who was a corrupt lobbyist and his friends, if I haven't cut spending. Ask the Air Force and Boeing, where I saved $2 billion, $2 billion by fighting against a bogus Air Force tanker deal. I think it was the reason why I wasn't elected Miss Congeniality in the United States Senate. I have a record of saving billions for the American taxpayers.
LIASSON: McCain is leading Romney in the polls here. And if he wins the New Hampshire primary, Romney will have been twice denied the early state victories he was counting on. The man who beat Romney in Iowa, Mike Huckabee, is a distant third in the polls here. But Romney also sparred with him last night on taxes.
Mr. ROMNEY: Now, I asked you a question to begin with.
Mr. MIKE HUCKABEE (Former Republican Governor, Arkansas): Mm-hmm?
Mr. ROMNEY: And that was, net-net, did you raise taxes in your state by half a billion dollars?
Mr. HUCKABEE: We raised jobs; we rebuilt our roads.
Mr. ROMNEY: You know, you know, that's political speak.
Mr. HUCKABEE: You know...
Mr. ROMNEY: The question is, you can avoid this issue by just saying...
Mr. HUCKABEE: You spent tens of millions of dollars saying all negative things about me.
LIASSON: The Republican Party establishment is apoplectic about the rise of Mike Huckabee. His anti-Wall Street populism sometimes makes him sound like a Republican class warrior. On the campaign trail, he often says people would rather elect someone that reminds them of the guy they work with, not the guy who laid them off.
Mr. HUCKABEE: When people sit around their dinner tables at night, they feel the effect of $3-a-gallon gasoline. They feel the effect of double-digit inflation on their health care costs. They understand that, and they're working two jobs and they're still not getting a great deal ahead from where they were the year before. If that's populism, then I'm guilty, because I think that if you understand the struggle of a lot of American families, our party had better wake up to that. If we don't, we're going to lose.
LIASSON: Since Romney lost the Iowa caucuses last week, he's retooled his message, saying the lesson of Iowa was that voters want change and that he is an outsider who can shake things up in Washington. He says McCain has been in Washington too long.
Mr. ROMNEY: Washington needs fundamental, top-to-bottom change. Just sending the same people to Washington but in different chairs is not going to result in a different outcome. And there is a very dramatic difference between talking about change and actually having led an organization with executive leadership skill, helping turn around in business, or turned around the Olympics, or turned around a state, and that is something which I think America is crying for.
LIASSON: It's not clear whether the Washington insider label will stick to the maverick McCain; he has been a thorn in the side of the Republican establishment for years.
Sen. McCAIN: I know that I have been an agent of change. I'm proud to have been one of those who has played a key role in bringing about one of the most important changes in recent years. And that was the change in strategy from a failing strategy in Iraq pursued by Secretary Rumsfeld, which was needlessly causing the sacrifice of our most precious American treasure. I don't know of a better change than saving American lives.
LIASSON: Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani also participated. Duncan Hunter and Ron Paul were excluded because Fox only invited candidates who had reached double digits in the national polls.
Mara Liasson, NPR News, Manchester.