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CONCORD, N.H. -- After skating through a Saturday night debate unruffled, Mitt Romney found himself under fire just 10 hours later from three opponents hoping to slow his momentum before Tuesday’s primary in New Hampshire and the contests beyond.

Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman each butted heads with Ron Paul in an ABC-sponsored debate Saturday night, but by 9 a.m. the next morning, they collectively trained their attacks on the overwhelming front-runner for the nomination in an NBC/Facebook debate. Rather than attack Romney's record in his single term as governor of Massachusetts, however, they challenged his insistence that he's not a career politician, ripping him for disguising a long interest in holding public office that they all share.

Santorum, who lost his battle for a third term in the Senate in 2006, pointed out that he has won difficult elections before, but that his defeat at least came in a blue state in a tough year. Romney, he pointed out, did not run for a second term that same year. Gingrich joined Santorum’s line of attack moments later, noting that Romney pivoted to run for president instead.

“If it was that important to the people of Massachusetts that you were going to go and fight for them, at least you can stand up and make the battle that you did a good job. I did that,” Santorum said. Then he referenced 1994, when he unseated a Democratic senator in Pennsylvania while Romney lost his effort to unseat the late Sen. Edward Kennedy in Massachusetts.

“Governor Romney lost by almost 20 points,” he continued. “Why? Because at the end of that campaign he wouldn't stand up for conservative principles. He ran from Ronald Reagan and he said he was going to be to the left, just like Kennedy on gay rights and abortion, a whole host of other issues. . . . We want someone who's going to stand up and fight for the conservative principles, not bail out.”

Romney defended his choice by noting that if he had run for re-election, it would have been about him rather than about the people of the state: “I put in place the things I wanted to do. I listed out the accomplishments we wanted to pursue in our administration. There were 100 things we wanted to do. Those things I pursued aggressively. Some we won. Some we didn't.”

Getting into the act, Gingrich zinged, “Can we drop a little bit of the pious baloney? The fact is you ran in '94 and lost. That's why you weren't serving in the Senate with Rick Santorum.”

Moments later, it was Romney who went on offense when he and Jon Huntsman scuffled over government service. NBC moderator David Gregory attempted to move the dialogue to spending cuts, but Huntsman chimed in on Santorum and Gingrich’s line of attack, taking issue with Romney’s critique the night before that Huntsman had served as ambassador to China under President Obama, a Democrat. Borrowing a line from the 2008 nominee, John McCain, who endorsed Romney last week, Huntsman argued that he put his country first and that Romney’s attitude was bad for the country.

The 20-minute exchange underscored the harsh reality of the race for those hoping to topple Romney as he steamrolls his way toward the Republican nomination: It simply may be too late. Instead of spending their debate time offering proffering their own bona fides, most of the candidates on stage picked at Romney, contrasting their careers in politics with his.

Indeed, Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom told a local news station after the debate here that the reason Romney was at the center of the storm was because all of the other candidates came to the debate “knowing it was the last time to hit Mitt Romney.” Naturally, he said they failed.