An array of Republicans and conservatives -- including some of Mitt Romney's sharpest critics -- rushed to the Republican presidential front-runner's defense Thursday to counter efforts to paint the former venture capitalist as a job-killer.
Under fire, Romney rivals Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry backed off from directly attacking Romney's tenure at the helm of Bain Capital.
"We're disappointed" with the line of criticism, said Thomas Donohue, the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The business group doesn't endorse in presidential campaigns, but Donohue said: "We think Romney has had a pretty good track record. Perfect? Hell no, but damn good."
Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who ran against Romney four years ago, wrote in an online letter: "It's surprising to see so many Republicans embrace that left-wing argument against capitalism." And another 2008 foe, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, told Fox News Channel: "I'm shocked at what they are doing. I'm going to say it's ignorant. Dumb. It's building something we should be fighting -- ignorance of the American economic system."
Romney's defenders, many of whom have histories of disagreeing with the former Massachusetts governor, argued that the attacks on his business record undermined the GOP's identity and weakened the party's chief argument against Democratic President Obama: that federal intrusion has stymied the economy's recovery.
Earlier in the week, Rush Limbaugh, often a Romney critic, called Gingrich's comments "out of bounds for those who value the free market." South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, who endorsed Romney in 2008 but is unaligned this year, said that Romney critics don't understand "the principles of our party."
"To have a few Republicans in this race beginning to talk about how bad it is to fire people it really gives the Democrats a lot of fodder," DeMint told radio host Laura Ingraham.
Gingrich and Perry seem to have gotten the message -- to a point. While Gingrich said "I'm not going to back down" during a campaign stop in Columbia on Thursday, he made no mention of Romney nor did he repeat his criticism of Romney's record as a venture capitalist.
An outside group supporting Gingrich -- called Winning Our Future -- pressed ahead with plans to launch an advertising attack on Romney's time at Bain, complete with a bruising ad and longer-form video in South Carolina assailing Romney as a vicious corporate raider.
Perry, who had likened companies such as Bain to vultures, avoided attacking Romney for his role at Bain during two stops in South Carolina on Thursday. Yet, he defended the approach later, arguing Republicans were better off airing concerns now than letting Democrats exploit it this fall.
