SPARTANBURG, S.C. ? As he has for most all of the previous eight Republican debates he?s been in, Mitt Romney emerged unscathed from the first joint candidate forum devoted to foreign policy.
None of the GOP frontrunner?s primary opponents attacked him by name here, choosing instead to level harsh attacks on President Barack Obama.
Continue ReadingGingrich won't hit Romney
Newt Gingrich, the candidate surging in the polls as Romney?s most formidable challenger even went so far as to flatly declare that he would not repeat a line of attack he?s used with increasing frequency against the former Massachusetts governor: that Romney was merely a ?manager? and incapable of changing Washington, D.C.
?No,? the former speaker told moderator Major Garrett of National Journal after Garrett asked him to apply the criticism to foreign policy.
Reminded that he had just attacked Romney along those lines in an interview, Gingrich, standing next to his GOP rival, suggested that he didn?t want to attack a fellow Republican during a debate.
?We?re here tonight to talk to the American people about why every single one of us is better than Barack Obama,? said the former speaker, drawing applause that suggested the GOP activists in the hall at Wofford College concurred.
With partisan Republican audiences at the debates, the GOP hopefuls appear to have made a calculation that, at the forums at least, there is more risk than reward in taking on their intra-party opponents. But while hammering Obama is a guaranteed crowd-pleaser, it?s less clear how it helps those candidates lagging behind Romney make up ground.
Jon Huntsman, whose campaign is singularly focused on defeating Romney in New Hampshire, came the closest here to criticizing the frontrunner ? but only obliquely.
?I don?t know that this country needs a trade war with China,? Huntsman said after Romney offered some tough talk on Beijing.
Asked after the debate about the lack of Romney criticism, Huntsman repeated his disagreement with the former Massachusetts governor on China policy.
Romney campaign officials are, of course, just fine with the lack of incoming. They suggest candidates have become reluctant to aim their fire at their candidate because of what?s happened to those Romney rivals who tried and failed to do so in the past.
?Look what happened to [Tim] Pawlenty when he did that,? said Romney strategist Stuart Stevens, recalling the former GOP hopeful?s bungled ?Obamneycare? attack on the frontrunner at a debate earlier this year.
Rick Perry also seemed to gain little from his stinging attack at a debate in Las Vegas last month on Mitt Romney?s use of illegal immigrants for lawncare.
?I think one thing we?ve learned from the debates is that we?re not falling into the trap of circling the wagons and destroying each other,? said Katon Dawson, a former South Carolina GOP chair and Perry adviser. ?At the end of the day, the Republicans get tired of the nit-picking.?
And, Stevens noted, the format here at the CBS-National Journal foreign policy debate didn?t lend itself to throwing elbows.
?What are they going to attack him on in a debate like this?? asked the strategist.
The eight Republicans on stage did, however, were glad to go after the president.
?If we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon,? Romney said. ?And if you elect Mitt Romney, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.?
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