Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney wanted to make one thing clear yesterday: He was the one under attack at Saturday night's debate at St. Anselm College, despite attempts by his opponents to paint him as the most negative candidate.

In an interview with ABC's George Stephanopolous yesterday, Romney said people will recognize that the attacks prove he is in a good position.

"And frankly, I think people who watch the debate had to say to themselves, 'What is it about these politicians that are more focused on insults than on issues?' " he said. "It's what's wrong with politics."

Romney said Washington lawmakers are unable to deal with challenges facing the country because they're too consumed with score-settling and attacking each other.

Who could Romney be talking about? An e-mail sent out by the campaign later in the morning provided a clue.

"At certain moments it had the effect of making Romney look more sympathetic, at others it made him look like the only adult on stage, and at others it made him look like he must be the front-runner, since people were so determined to take him down a peg," Scheiber wrote on his blog. "McCain in particular seemed to go too far, looking and sounding downright snide at times."

• The blogosphere was rife with speculation yesterday about one of Sen. Barack Obama's New Hampshire campaign co-chairmen, Concord lobbyist Jim Demers, and what Obama said about him at Saturday night's debate. Demers came up - although not by name - when Sen. Hillary Clinton accused him of being a lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry.

News reports said Obama "denied" the charge, but when the debate was replayed on New Hampshire Public Radio yesterday, Obama's response was inaudible, though he shook his head no and seemed to mouth the words "not true." The ABC transcript of the debate does not include a response from Obama.

According to the New Hampshire Secretary Of State's Office, Demers is registered to lobby for Pfizer and PhRMA.

"You can talk a great game about how you are really standing firm against the special interests, and then when it becomes inconvenient that you actually have a lobbyist running your campaign, you deny it," Clinton said yesterday morning.

Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs told the Associated Press that Demers does not do business involving federal legislation or regulation. He said the campaign has drawn a distinction between lobbyists who are registered to work at the state level and those who lobby the federal government. "There is a difference between a college football player and professional football player," he said.

Another campaign spokesman, Bill Burton, said Obama "was shaking his head because her implication was that it violated our lobbyist pledge, and (Demers's) role quite clearly does not."

• John Edwards's campaign sent out an e-mail yesterday afternoon with a link to a blog post by Newsday's Glenn Thrush, who wrote about a moment in the debate when Clinton "got so worked up about Barack Obama she was practically bellowing." Edwards campaign strategist Joe Trippi told Thrush it reminded him of Howard Dean's infamous scream after the 2004 Iowa caucuses.

"No," Trippi said when asked if Clinton's "scream" was as bad as Dean's. Trippi was a Dean campaign adviser four years ago. "But it's about as close as you can get."

A Clinton campaign spokeswoman could not be reached for comment last night.

• McCain aides sent reporters a crude campaign flier they say was taped on ATMs across Manchester yesterday.

"Press '1' for English," the flier says. "Press 'dos' for McCain."

It lists several quotes from McCain and accuses him of working with Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts to clear a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. In big, bold letters it says, "John McCain will be 72 in August!!" The number 72 was also underlined. It was not clear who was responsible for the flier.

• Politico's Ben Smith reported yesterday that Clinton aide Jay Carson had criticized Edwards for repeatedly citing the story of Nataline Sarkisyan at campaign events. Sarkisyan, a 17-year-old California girl, died on Dec. 20 after her insurance company denied coverage for a liver transplant. Her family was traveling with Edwards yesterday, after contacting his campaign and volunteering their time.

"In order to be president, you need to do more than read articles about people who need help and talk about them," Carson said, according to Smith. He said Clinton is "somebody who's actually going to help people and not use them as talking points."

In a statement released last night by his campaign, Edwards said the Clinton campaign "doesn't seem to have a conscience." Edwards said he was willing to let the comment go last night and earlier today. But "the more I thought about the idea that somehow everything is about them - it's an indication that they have no conscience about what's at stake here," he said. "These families are what this is about."

• Anti-Romney push polling may be going on again, the campaign said yesterday. Two people notified the campaign that they had received phone calls asking them to take an automated survey but were presented with negative information about Romney's tax record.

Bob Letourneau, a state senator from Derry and Romney supporter, said the call came from a Virginia number that was out of service last night.

"It was definitely a push call," Letourneau said. "I know one when I get one."

Letourneau also heard from a constituent who said the survey attacked Romney and touted Huckabee's record. The call said the survey was being conducted by a company called Common Sense Solutions and was not affiliated with any campaign.

Several internet message boards, including a blog for Ron Paul supporters, had comments from people who said they were from New Hampshire and also received the calls yesterday afternoon from the same phone number. One person said the automated message was from a company called Common Sense Issues, and also attacked McCain's tax record and praised Huckabee.

A Huckabee spokeswoman could not be reached last night.

• The Romney campaign issued another press release in its "Straight Talk Detour" series scrutinizing McCain's appearance on NBC's Meet the Press yesterday. It criticized McCain for insisting, in the Romney campaign's words, that "he was right to vote against tax relief for New Hampshire."

McCain told moderator Tim Russert yesterday he does not believe it was a mistake to vote against the Bush tax cuts, according to the press release, which also included a link to a YouTube video of the exchange. The release lists the details of McCain's votes and provides information from the U.S. Treasury Department website estimating the effect of the tax cuts in New Hampshire.

McCain's spokeswoman called Romney "desperate" and accused Romney of taking McCain's comments out of context.

"John McCain made clear, as he has many times, that he voted against the tax cuts only because there were no spending cuts to go along with them," Crystal Benton wrote in an e-mail. "As president, John McCain is committed to cutting taxes AND cutting wasteful Washington spending."

• Mike Huckabee was also the subject of a press release yesterday from the Romney camp, which jumped on Huckabee for asserting at Saturday's debate that he supported the war in Iraq before Romney had and backed a troop surge in Iraq when Romney did not.

On ABC's This Week yesterday morning, Stephanopolous confronted Huckabee with a video in which the former Arkansas governor said he was not sure if he supported a troop surge. The Romney press release sums up the exchange:

"According to this evidence, you did not support the surge before Mitt Romney," Stephanopolous said. "I don't know how you can have it both ways, governor."

A spokeswoman for the Huckabee campaign could not be reached for comment yesterday.

• Rudy Giuliani says he adheres to a modified version of Ronald Reagan's "11th commandment:" Do not attack other Republicans unless they attack you first.

Maybe it's his libertarian bent, but Ron Paul seems to be fair game. Giuliani ridiculed Paul at the debate Saturday night and used him as a punchline at a Hollis house party yesterday.

When asked who he would appoint to his cabinet, Giuliani said Abraham Lincoln's cabinet serves as a good model.

"Abraham Lincoln picked all his Republican rivals and put them in the cabinet," he said. "So the cabinet would look like last night's debate . . . maybe one exception."

When reporters asked Giuliani if he meant Romney, who has no reservations attacking others, or Paul, Giuliani smirked and said, "I think you can guess."

Monitor staff writers Chelsea Conaboy and Joelle Farrell contributed to this report.

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By KATE DAVIDSON

Monitor staff