Pawlenty vs. Bachmann and all vs. Obama in GOP presidential debate

AMES, Iowa - Eight Republican presidential contenders trained most of their rhetorical fire on President Obama and his inability to fix the nation's banged-up economy Thursday during a live televised debate ahead of a straw poll that promised to shape the fluid campaign to oppose him.

It didn't take long, however, for two Minnesota rivals with a lot at stake in Saturday's straw poll - former Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Rep. Michele Bachmann - to detour into attacks on each other that amounted to the sharpest exchange so far in the 2012 campaign.

Pawlenty mocked Bachmann's congressional record, saying her vehement opposition to Obama's health-care plan and economic policies was ineffective.

"If that's your view of effective leadership, please stop. You are killing us," Pawlenty said. "The American people are going to demand more."

Bachmann shot back that Pawlenty's record as governor of Minnesota sounds "a lot more like Barack Obama, if you ask me," citing his support for environmental policies that would cap the emission of greenhouse gases and for a mandate that individuals buy health insurance.

"I have a very consistent record of fighting against Barack Obama," she said. "That is what qualifies me as a fighter and a representative of the people. People are looking for a champion."

Bachmann turned a strong performance in the last debate, two months ago in New Hampshire, into momentum in Iowa, rising to the top of the field in polls. That has made her a target of media attention and of her rivals, particularly Pawlenty, who has spent $1 million to organize for the straw poll, a symbolic test of campaign strength that he is looking to use to gain traction for his campaign.

Pawlenty, who is aiming at the same base of religious and fiscal conservatives as Bachmann, seemed to falter after he failed to press an attack against Mitt Romney in the New Hampshire debate.

Romney, as the front-runner, probably benefited from the conflict Thursday night between Pawlenty and Bachmann; few shots were taken at him. He said he would not have signed the recent debt-limit deal if he had been president.

"I'm not going to eat President Obama's dog food," Romney said, adding that the president had no love for or understanding of the free-enterprise system. Later, he said of Obama: "We have a man as leader who is out of his depth . . . he hasn't lived in the real economy."

Pawlenty took jabs at both Obama and Romney, a wealthy man. "Where's Barack Obama on these issues? You can't find his plans on the most pressing issues in this country," Pawlenty said, promising audience members and TV viewers he would "come to your house and cook you dinner" if they could find Obama's proposals. "Or if you prefer I'll come to your house and mow your lawn . . . In case Mitt wins, I'd limit it to one acre."

Later, panelist Byron York asked Bachmann whether she would be "submissive" to her husband as president, a reference to her quotation of the biblical verse that says wives should submit to their husbands.

The crowd in the auditorium booed the question.

"What 'submission' means to us . . . is respect," she said.

Romney's Thursday got off to a rough start when the former Massachusetts governor got into a snippy shouting match with a heckler at the Iowa State Fair.

He also caused a stir by saying "corporations are people." Look for that in Democratic ads if he gets the nomination.

Also participating in the debate were former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich; Texas Rep. Ron Paul, the libertarian icon; pizza magnate Herman Cain; and, for the first time on the national debate stage, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.

"President Obama has had two and a half years to get it right," Huntsman, Obama's former ambassador to China, told the audience. "He's fundamentally failed us."

He said he favored civil unions for same-sex couples, which put him to the left of all his rivals on the stage, and he touted his record as a tax cutter as governor of Utah.

Huntsman is not participating in the straw poll or competing in Iowa's caucuses. Romney is also skipping the straw poll.

GOP insiders expect Paul to do well, and possibly win, the straw poll, saying he has had a highly developed organization in the state to deliver supporters.

If the conflict between Pawlenty and Bachmann provided early electricity, two absent Republicans took some of the media spotlight from the two-hour competition playing out on the campus of Iowa State University and televised by Fox News.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a staunch social and fiscal conservative, is scheduled to announce his candidacy Saturday in South Carolina and will visit Iowa Sunday night. He had been urged into the race by some on the right who want a forceful alternative to front-runner Romney.

Adding to the intrigue, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin decided to revive her on-again, off-again "One Nation" bus tour to crash the Iowa State Fair on Friday.

The Ames straw poll has not been a good predictor of who wins the Iowa caucuses, let alone the Republican nomination, but the off-year summer battle has often narrowed the field of candidates before the voting that counts early next year, when thousands of Iowa Republicans will gather in small neighborhood groups to cast the first votes.

Santorum was campaigning hard for votes and media attention. He has been overlooked lately - the last Rasmussen Poll of Iowa, for instance, did not even include his name. At one point during the debate, after the panel had ignored him, Santorum raised his hand and invited questions: "I haven't had a chance to say a whole lot."

To Iowans, Santorum said, "You have probably seen me in your hometown more than you've seen me on television before tonight."

He criticized the GOP field's professed love for the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, which reserves rights to the states not expressly given to the federal government. His argument: that his opponents had done too little to combat gay marriage and that too much obeisance to that amendment would make it impossible to stop same.

That means states could legalize "polygamy" or "forced sterilization," Santorum said. "We are a nation that has moral values . . . was founded as a moral enterprise."