Washington, Sep 8 (IANS): The two Republican frontrunners, Mitt Romney and Rick Perry, launched their fight for the party presidential nomination clashing over job creation to health care to social security and more.

Appearing at a Republican presidential debate in Los Angeles Wednesday night, Texas governor Perry mock Romney's record on employment as governor of Massachusetts, suggesting his opponent "had one of the lowest job creation rates" in the country.

But Romney, long the Republican frontrunner until Perry entered the race, shot back saying Perry benefited from the lack of an income tax in Texas, an all-Republican legislature and other conditions that Perry didn't create.

To take credit for that, Romney said, would be "like Al Gore saying he invented the Internet."

Casting Perry as a candidate outside the Republican mainstream, Romney pounced on the Texan when he described Social Security as a "Ponzi scheme."

Among the other candidates, Michele Bachmann, who has seen much of the wind go out of her campaign since winning the Iowa straw poll nearly a month ago, largely stuck to the same script she's used throughout the entire campaign, according to Politico, which sponsored the debate with NBC.

Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman, who gave up his job as US envoy to China to fight the election, "struggled to stand out at a critical moment for his campaign," the newspaper focusing on politics said.

He stood by his view that Republicans are at risk of being perceived as "anti-science" due to other candidates' views on global warming.

Accusing the moderators of attempting to pit Republicans against each other over the issue of health care, former house speaker Newt Gingrich said: "You'd like to puff this up into some giant thing" because "whoever the nominee is, we are all for defeating Barack Obama."

The debate is one of seven such events that will take place by the end of the year.