MANCHESTER, N.H. — Just hours before Gov. Rick Perry of Texas addressed a Republican dinner across town on Friday, Mitt Romney fielded questions from a largely friendly crowd here, offering up his opinion on matters as diverse as the price of gas and the Occupy Wall Street movement.
When a man prefaced a question about drilling in Alaska by explaining, “I paid $3.45 a gallon on my way over here to fill up my car to come see you,” Mr. Romney interjected: “Where’d you go for that? That’s a good price!”
“Actually, I think it’s high,” the man replied.
Awkward. But not quite as bad as Barack Obama’s arugula moment four years ago. (In fact, according to AAA, the national average for a gallon of gas as of Friday was $3.448, up from $2.808 a year ago).
Mr. Romney received a standing ovation from the largely friendly crowd— savvy enough to offer a knowing chuckle when Mr. Romney mentioned “Massachusetts,” shorthand for his time as a Republican governor in a traditionally Democratic state — when he entered the room.
“I was, if you will, playing an away game,” Mr. Romney said, referring to his time as governor. “This was not a friendly, if you will, environment.”
Casting himself as a political outsider, Mr. Romney — who is making his fourth run for office — said he was prepared to make the tough decisions to turn around the country.
“I don’t have a career in politics,” Mr. Romney said. “This for me is not the next step in my political career, to run for president. As you know, I was governor for four years, and I pointed out, I didn’t inhale.”
Mr. Romney also used the forum to reiterate some of his views about the role of government, and tacitly set himself apart from Mr. Perry, who has called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme.”
“This is a nation increasingly being run for government, not for the people, and it’s time for us, the people, to take our government back,” he said. “I want to save Medicare and Social Security, not just for those that are already retired, but for those who someday will be retired.”
Asked about the Occupy Wall Street movement occurring in cities across the country, Mr. Romney turned the blame on President Obama.
“If we had 6 percent unemployment, instead of 9.1 percent unemployment, this wouldn’t be going on,” he said. “So if we had a president who had understood what it took to reboot the American economy and get us back to work, we wouldn’t have this problem, or we wouldn’t have people protesting, because they’d be working.”
Mr. Romney added: “There are some people in that protest effort who are just angry that they can’t find work. And that their costs are going up and their income is going down. And I certainly sympathize with those people. I’m sure there are others in the group that have less benevolent sentiments and are intent on just causing difficulty of one kind or another.”
Mr. Romney’s town hall meeting came on the heels of a busy day in New Hampshire. Mr. Perry had a full day of campaigning here Friday, and he and the Romney camp got into a back-and-forth over comments Mr. Romney made on Thursday in Pittsburgh about climate change. Mr. Perry accused Mr. Romney of shifting his position on the topic.
On the eve of Mr. Perry’s visit, The New Hampshire Union Leader broke the news that Norman Major, an eight-term state representative from Plaistow, had switched his support to Mr. Romney from Mr. Perry.
Walking out the door, Mr. Romney was asked perhaps the most timely question of the evening — whom was he rooting for in the evening’s World Series game?
“Oh, I’m pulling for the Cardinals,” Mr. Romney said.