Romney Seeks to Deflect Attacks From Rivals Over $10,000 Wager

By Lisa Lere

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney sought to deflect criticism that he’s out of touch with ordinary voters because of his wealth, a day after coming under fire during a primary debate.

Campaigning in New Hampshire yesterday, Romney used humor to play down the $10,000 wager he offered to rival Rick Perry during the nationally televised debate.

The former Massachusetts governor described a chiding he got from his wife, Ann, after leaving the debate stage.

“She said, ‘a lot of things you do well; betting wasn’t one of them,” he told reporters in Hudson, New Hampshire.

When asked whether the bet was the largest he’d ever made, Romney dismissed the question.

“That’s all I got,” he said.

Romney’s rivals have worked to make his wealth an issue in the campaign, painting the former private equity executive as disconnected from the economic anxiety facing many voters.

Romney, 64, the founder of the Boston-based firm Bain Capital LLC, is worth as much as $250 million, according to a personal financial disclosure he filed in August.

He made the wager during the Dec. 10 debate, after denying an assertion by Perry, the governor of Texas, that he had supported requiring individuals to have health insurance.

“I’ll bet you 10,000 bucks,” Romney said.

Perry replied, “I’m not in the betting business.”

‘Out of Touch’

Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” Perry said the wager showed Romney was “a little out of touch with the normal Iowa citizen.”

Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, who didn’t qualify for the debate because his poll numbers were too low, released a video replaying the incident and started a website attacking Romney’s health-care record.

The Democratic National Committee also jumped on the $10,000 offer, a sum it said in an e-mail to reporters was more than four months’ pay for many people and could be more than a year’s worth of mortgage payments.

Aides to Romney dismissed the incident, saying he was speaking in the heat of the moment.

“It will blow over,” said Tom Rath, an adviser in New Hampshire.

Addressing voters yesterday, Romney portrayed himself as having experienced frugal living. He described his time living cheaply as a missionary in France after graduating high school.

‘Bucket Affair’

Romney, the son of a former Michigan governor and auto company chief executive officer, recounted how he went from living in an affluent home to a meager $110 per month.

“You’re not living high on the hog at that kind of level,” he said.

He recalled renting apartments without showers, refrigerators or toilets -- a “bucket affair” -- he said.

“I lived in the way that people of lower middle income in France lived,” he said. “It was a wake-up experience for me.”

The attacks came as new polling showed former House Speaker Newt Gingrich surging past Romney in two early primary states. An NBC News/Marist poll released yesterday showed Gingrich with 42 percent support to Romney’s 23 percent in South Carolina. In Florida, 44 percent favored Gingrich and 23 percent backed Romney.

With less than a month before the first round of voting takes place in Iowa, Romney described the race as “fluid.”

“These polls have bounced all over the place in the past year,” he said.

‘People Are Shopping’

Huntsman, who isn’t actively campaigning in Iowa, said Republican voters haven’t made up their minds yet.

“There have been so many ups and downs in this race, I’m getting whiplashed,” Huntsman said in an appearance on ABC’s “This Week” program. “The marketplace is still open. People are shopping.”

Huntsman and Gingrich will meet today for a 90-minute debate at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Gingrich, 68, had been largely ignored by his Republican rivals in many of this year’s previous debates and often assumed the role of scold, berating the questioners at the forums. That wasn’t the case in the debate following his surge during the past month in polls.

He and Romney each faced attacks during the debate from rivals, as both assailed each other.

Understanding the Economy

Romney earlier had contrasted his background with that of Gingrich, who he has derided as a career politician and Washington insider.

“The real difference I believe is our backgrounds,” he said. “I spent my life in the private sector. I understand how the economy works.”

Gingrich said Romney would have been a Washington insider himself if he had won an election in Massachusetts for the U.S. Senate almost two decades ago.

“Let’s be candid, the only reason you didn’t become a career politician is you lost to Teddy Kennedy in 1994,” Gingrich said. “You’d have been a 17-year career politician by now if you’d won.”

U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann, of Minnesota, said there was little difference between either man, labeling them “Newt Romney.” Interviewed on CBS’s Face the Nation, she accused both of supporting a national health-care mandate.

“Both Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich represent the big government frugal socialist wing of the party,” she said. “I represent the true constitutional conservative wing of our party.”