ORLANDO, Fla. -- Hours before the sixth Republican presidential debate, the mood among the crowd was one of giddy anticipation. The early disappointments with the field have faded. The Republican contenders for the presidential nomination aimed their fire Thursday night at front-runner Rick Perry while several second-tier candidates tried to gain traction in the GOP field as they faced off at a debate in Orlando, Fla.The initial moments were congenial, with the candidates skewering President Obama's economic policies, but they soon turned on one another. As they have in prior meetings, Mitt Romney and Perry jousted repeatedly, with Perry at one point comparing their exchanges to a game of badminton as he gestured as though he were swinging a racket.Romney criticized Perry for saying that Social Security was unconstitutional as a federal matter and ought to be handled by the states, a claim the Texas governor denied. Throughout the evening, Perry repeatedly accused the former Massachusetts governor of flip-flopping."This is not the first time that Mitt's been wrong on issues. We never said we are going to move this back to the states," Perry said, arguing that he was discussing state workers, as they had in Massachusetts.Romney replied that Perry's words now are different than they were months ago, when his book "Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington" came out."There is a Rick Perry out there that's saying … that [the] federal government shouldn't be in the pension business, and it's unconstitutional, and it should be returned to the states, so you better find that Rick Perry and get him to stop saying that," Romney said.Perry used the exchange to draw attention to Romney's healthcare plan in Massachusetts, which included a mandate and which Obama's federal plan was based on.
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