With the N.H. primary looming, frontrunner Mitt Romney touts his plan to reduce government spending

As predicted, New Hampshire Secretary of State William Gardner recently set the presidential primary date for Tuesday, Jan. 10, retaining the Granite State’s first-in-the-nation status. That means Republican candidates have two months to pitch their closing arguments as they seek a win here and the party nomination in 2012.

Local voters can expect an intensification of candidate visits in coming weeks. Mitt Romney recently appeared at Exeter Town Hall on the evening of Nov. 3 to talk about his plan to cut government spending.

Romney has been the frontrunner here since campaigning began a year ago. Other candidates have made temporary surges (most recently Herman Cain, whose campaign is now mired in allegations of scandal), but Romney has mostly held steady. A poll released by the UNH Survey Center on Oct. 7 found that 37 percent of state Republicans favor Romney, while Cain was a distant second with 12 percent.

Looking to maintain that momentum, Romney addressed a friendly crowd in Exeter, where he was introduced by several supporters, including state Sen. Russell Prescott, former U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg, and Romney’s wife, Ann. He began by criticizing the Obama administration, saying federal spending as a percent of the total economy has risen to over 25 percent during Obama’s tenure.

“My objective by the end of my first term, if I’m lucky enough to become president, is to get that 25 percent down to 20 percent,” Romney said. That’s a reduction of about $500 billion in spending over four years.

To achieve that goal, Romney introduced a three-part “combination effort.” The first approach, he said, involves cutting programs.

“Now, there are some programs I just don’t like and will be easy to eliminate, like Obama Care,” he said, broaching an issue that has proven a thorn of his campaign. Other candidates have been quick to point out that Obama partially modeled his health care reform package after Romney’s plan for Massachusetts.

He quickly moved on, saying there are other federal programs he likes but would still cut unless they are essential and worth borrowing money for.

“By that test, there are a number of things that I say it’s time for us to stop spending money on,” he said. “I like Amtrak, but $1.6 billion borrowed from China to pay for it is not a good idea. I would cut it out.”

In a press release sent shortly before his speech, Romney said he would also enact deep reductions in subsidies for the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Legal Services Corporation, as well as funding for family planning programs like Planned Parenthood.

In Exeter, Romney said he would also reduce foreign aid to other countries, including $10 million per year to China.

“I would stop sending foreign aid to countries that can take care of themselves,” he said. “And let’s also stop sending money to countries that don’t line up with our interests.”

The second facet of his plan, he said, would involve returning certain federal programs to individual states, where he said they can be run more efficiently. He cited Medicaid as an example.

The third approach involves “government productivity.” He said he would reduce federal employment by 10 percent and ensure government employees receive compensation based on the same standards as in the private sector.

He would also work to repeal the Davis-Bacon Act, which he said requires the government to use union labor and pay union wage rates for any construction project.

“It’s time for that bill to go away and for competition to exist to get the best deal for taxpayers,” he said.

He also promised to reduce fraud in government programs by imposing stiffer penalties for such crimes. Cutting fraud payments in half would result in savings of more than $60 billion per year, he said.

Finally, he said, he would reorganize and consolidate various departments and agencies to reduce the government’s overhead costs.

The morning after Romney’s visit, his campaign was back to attacking the candidate he apparently views as his chief rival, Texas Gov. Rick Perry. The Romney campaign sent an e-mail on Nov. 4 saying Perry’s tax plan would increase taxes on more than 40 percent of American households.

Although Romney’s campaign initially said it would not be affected by Perry’s entrance into the race, he has been launching daily attacks on the governor ever since. One of his most common refrains is that Perry is a career politician, while Romney is a career businessman who spent just four years in government—his one term as governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007.

Of course, it’s not entirely by choice that Romney has spent so little time in government. He ran for U.S. Senate in 1994 but was soundly defeated by Ted Kennedy. He opted not to run for reelection as governor in order to run for the presidency in 2008, but he didn’t make it past the primary. Now he’s running again.

The ultimate fear of Republicans is that Romney could become the GOP’s version of John Kerry—a challenger facing an incumbent with waning popularity, but who still might lack the political voltage to win the general election.

Already, Romney’s opponents are branding him as a flip-flopper, the label that so plagued Sen. Kerry in 2004. As a gubernatorial candidate, Romney said he was pro-choice; as a presidential candidate, he’s turned pro-life. In his 2009 book “No Apology,” Romney said global warming was happening and that human activity was a contributing factor. Now, he’s not so sure.

Andrew Smith, director of the UNH Survey Center, said part of Romney’s challenge is appealing to different states with different priorities. In early voting states like Iowa and South Carolina, for instance, social issues like abortion and gay marriage are more important to voters than in New Hampshire.

“In the primary, I think the biggest problem (for Romney) is facing the accusation of changing his mind and taking a different position depending on who the audience is,” Smith said. “Having shaded positions on some social issues, those sorts of things will hurt him.”

The talking points will change again if Romney secures the nomination and squares off against Obama in the general election. But accusations of flip-flopping probably won’t go away, entirely. “It’s an effective argument politically because it questions the character and credibility of the candidate,” Smith said.

Still, he said, the chief concern of voters will be the economy, and the election will likely come down to which party can mobilize more voters to the polls.