(Bloomberg News) Mitt Romney told voters on the eve of today's New Hampshire primary that he likes "being able to fire people who provide services to me," giving ammunition to rivals in the Republican presidential race criticizing him over his tenure as chief executive officer of a private equity company.
In comments to several hundred listeners at a breakfast meeting of the Nashua Chamber of Commerce yesterday, Romney said: "If someone doesn't give me the good service I need, I want to say, 'You know, I'm going to get someone else to provide this service to me.'"
His off-the-cuff comments were about health-care providers. That didn't stop his opponents from using them to intensify attacks over whether his push for profits as founder and CEO of the Boston-based private equity company Bain Capital LLC came at the expense of workers. In addition, the state's largest television station, WMUR-TV in Manchester, carried it as a top news story.
Soon after Romney's remarks, former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman Jr. responded from Concord, New Hampshire, saying: "Governor Romney enjoys firing people. I enjoy creating jobs."
The focus on Romney's experience included new questions raised about the former Massachusetts governor's assertion that he'd helped create a net of 100,000 jobs while at the firm.
'Cooked' Numbers
"Those numbers can easily be cooked," Huntsman said at Crosby Bakery in Nashua.
The exchanges yesterday illustrated a sharp turn in tone before New Hampshire voters cast ballots in the first-in-the-nation Republican primary, as Romney's opponents maneuvered to become his chief challenger.
Several hundred miles away in Anderson, South Carolina, Texas Governor Rick Perry talked about local businesses that were "looted" by Bain Capital, saying it was the "ultimate insult" for Romney to campaign in the state.
During a town hall meeting in Manchester, New Hampshire, former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich said it's necessary to examine Romney's record in the private sector because there's a difference between "looting" a company and engaging in standard business practices.
"Is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of other people and walk off with the money or is that, in fact, somehow a little bit of a flawed system?" Gingrich told reporters. "I do draw a distinction between looting a company, leaving behind broken families and broken neighborhoods and leaving behind a factory that should be there."