Target: Romney

It was supposed to be a smackdown between John McCain and Mitt Romney. But Saturday's GOP presidential debate in New Hampshire, held three days before the state's high stakes primary, was something more of a four-on-one gang fight, with Romney as the target.

Struggling to regain momentum after losing the Iowa caucuses, the former Massachusetts governor spent much of the night on defense, coming under attack by nearly every rival on stage, except for Ron Paul. (And he, too, probably would have dinged Romney if he'd gotten the time.) Romney was slapped by his opponents for changing positions on immigration, health care and foreign policy--though the jabs didn't come unsolicited. Romney arrived on stage ready to fight, training his fire early on McCain and Mike Huckabee, who quickly fought back.

The fireworks started in the first minutes of the debate, which aired on ABC, when Romney trashed Huckabee's recent essay in Foreign Affairs magazine in which the former Arkansas governor criticized the Bush administration for having an "arrogant bunker mentality" on foreign policy. In response, Huckabee pushed back, accusing Romney of echoing a similar opinion last year and of supporting a "timed withdrawal" of troops from Iraq.

"Don't characterize my position," Romney warned.

"Which one?" Huckabee shot back.

And that wasn't the only venom of the night. When Romney went after McCain, accusing him of supporting amnesty for illegal immigrants (a charge Romney makes in one of his TV ads airing here in New Hampshire), the Arizona senator repeatedly denied the charge. "You can spend your whole fortune on these attack ads, my friend, but it still won't be true," McCain said, referring to the millions of his own dollars that Romney has pumped into his campaign.