Rivals attack Romney in GOP debate

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. -- Mitt Romney's Republican presidential rivals attempted to plant new doubts about him with South Carolina voters during a debate here Monday night, putting the front-runner on the defensive -- and unnerving him at moments -- even as polls suggest he is in a position to win a crucial contest on Saturday.

Under heavy pressure from his rivals, Romney defended his record as a venture capitalist, insisted he bears no responsibility for attack ads aired by his allies and said he might release his income tax returns this spring.

Aware that only five days remained before a primary that could clear the former Massachusetts governor's path to the nomination, his four rivals offered some of their most strident rhetoric of the campaign.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry led the assault against Romney's record at Bain Capital, a venture capital firm. "There was a pattern in some companies, a handful of them, of leaving them with enormous debt and then within a year or two or three having them go broke," Gingrich said.

Perry said, "I visited Georgetown, South Carolina. It was one of those towns where there was a steel mill that [Bain Capital] swept in, they picked that company over and a lot of people lost jobs there."

Romney insisted that he is proud of his record. "I think if people want to have someone who understands how the economy works, having worked in the real economy, then I'm the guy that can best post up against Barack Obama," he said.

He also raised his estimate of how many jobs were created by his firm. He previously had put the number at more than 100,000 but said Monday that four businesses alone that his company helped start accounted for 120,000 new positions.

Romney, however, was caught off balance at several points during the debate. He grew visibly uncomfortable as Perry demanded that he release his tax returns.

When pressed by a moderator, Romney responded, "If I become our nominee and what's happened in history is people have released them in about April of the coming year, and that's probably what I'd do."

The rivals also sought to outdo one another in calling for lower taxes. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas won that competition handily, saying he thought the top personal tax rate should be zero.

Romney also appeared unprepared when former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania turned the tables on the question of whether felons should be allowed to vote. An outside group supporting Romney has been running ads criticizing Santorum for saying he supports restoring that right to felons who have served their time.

Santorum said, "If in fact, you felt so passionately about this that you are now going to go out and have somebody criticize me for restoring voting rights to people who have . . . exhausted their sentence and served their time and paid their debt to society, then why didn't you try to change that when you were governor of Massachusetts?"

Romney said he couldn't have had such legislation passed in a Democratic legislature.

The next GOP debate is set for Thursday. With AP