Romney swipes at Republican front-runner Guiliani

By Steve Holland

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.