Romney swipes at Republican front-runner Guiliani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scrambling to make up ground on his top rival, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Friday took aim at front-runner Rudy Giuliani, accusing him of big-spending policies as New York's mayor.

"Big City, Big Spender," read a news release from the Romney campaign that drew attention to Giuliani's fight to keep in place a commuter tax when he was New York's mayor.

The Romney campaign also announced it would broadcast a radio advertisement in the early voting state of New Hampshire pointing out that Romney was the only Republican candidate who had pledged to oppose any attempt to raise taxes on Americans.

Romney's strategy is to try to instill doubt about Giuliani's Republican credentials among conservatives already worried about Giuliani's stance in favor of abortion rights.

For a party demoralized by the prospect of losing the White House to the Democrats, there have been few fireworks between the Republican candidates. But the latest scrap could set the stage for a head-to-head clash at a Republican debate next Tuesday in Michigan.

Romney leads the Republican field in Iowa, whose caucuses in January will be the first voting event on the long road to the November 2008 election. But Giuliani has closed a gap with Romney in New Hampshire and leads all Republican candidates in national polls.

TAXES AND SPENDING

The Romney camp also released a column from Cesar Conda, a former domestic and economic policy adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, in which he points out that Giuliani has not ruled out higher taxes to pay for extending the solvency of the Social Security retirement system.

"Ambiguity on taxes is something Republicans cannot afford," Conda wrote.

Republicans are alarmed at the failure of Washington politicians to rein in ever-growing government spending are searching for a fiscally conservative presidential candidate who can slow down the spending.

Giuliani also took fire from Democrat Hillary Clinton. The New York senator's campaign began running an ad in Iowa and New Hampshire that seemed intended to steal some of Giuliani's thunder as the city's mayor during the September 11 attacks.

The ad, in which Clinton appears wearing a dust mask on a visit to the site of the attacks, says, "She stood by Ground Zero workers who sacrificed their health care after so many sacrificed their lives."

Giuliani was criticized in August for saying he spent as much time if not more than rescue workers at the site of New York's destroyed World Trade Center.

Clinton, herself was assailed by Democratic rival John Edwards who charged that her campaign strategist Mark Penn's public relations firm, Burson-Marsteller, represented Blackwater USA, the security firm accused of killing Iraqi civilians.

In Iowa, Edwards likened Penn to President George W. Bush's former political adviser, Karl Rove, and suggested a Clinton presidency would not bring the sort of change needed in Washington.

"I think it is important for Iowa caucus goers to understand the choices they have in this election. And it is the reason I continue to say we don't want to replace a group of corporate Republicans with a group of corporate Democrats."

Clinton spokesman Phil Singer said Penn did no work on the Blackwater account, Burson-Marsteller has cut its ties with the firm "and that was the right thing to do."

(Additional reporting by Andy Sullivan)

(To read more about the U.S. political campaign, visit Reuters "Tales from the Trail: 2008" online at blogs.reuters.com/trail08/