Manchester, New Hampshire (CNN) -- Hours before the first primary vote of 2012, Republican front-runner Mitt Romney tried to recover from a potential stumble Monday as his presidential rivals intensified their attacks against him.





Voters in New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary begin choosing their GOP candidates as early as 12 a.m. Tuesday in two small towns -- Dixville Notch and Hart's Location -- while polling stations in the rest of the state open at 6 a.m. and close as late as 8 p.m. ET.





The final day of campaigning saw Romney under fire for a comment about health insurance that quickly became fodder for criticism.





Asked about the issue in Nashua, New Hampshire, Romney said he wanted a person to be able to own his or her own policy "and perhaps keep it the rest of their life."





"That means the insurance company will have the incentive to keep you healthy. It also means if you don't like what they do, you can fire them," he said.





"I like being able to fire people who provide services to me," Romney added. "If someone doesn't give me the good service I need, I want to say I am going to get somebody else to provide that service to me."





Rival candidate Jon Huntsman immediately seized on the comment as an indication of Romney's political nature.





"It has become abundantly clear over the last couple of days what differentiates Gov. Romney and me," Huntsman said in Concord. "I will always put my country first. It seems that Gov. Romney believes in putting politics first. Gov. Romney enjoys firing people. I enjoy creating jobs."





The Democratic National Committee released a derisive Web video and called Romney "out of touch," while the campaign of Texas Gov. Rick Perry looped Romney's words to make a cell phone ring tone that quickly went viral.





Romney spent much of the rest of the day clarifying what he meant. At one point, Romney said he expected the comment to be taken out of context to try to hurt him, and his campaign issued a statement emphasizing he was talking about firing an insurance company, not people.





"Our opponents are taking Gov. Romney's comments completely out of context," said a statement by Gail Gitcho, the campaign's communications director. "Gov. Romney was talking about firing insurance companies if you don't like their service. That is something that most Americans agree with."





The latest twist in the GOP presidential race came on the eve of the first primary election a week after Romney won the Iowa caucuses by just eight votes over former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.





With Romney in front in polls in New Hampshire and South Carolina, the site of the first Southern state primary on January 21, rivals stepped up their attacks by questioning the former Massachusetts governor's business background and electability.





In Manchester, former House speaker Newt Gingrich tore into Romney's record in the private sector at the helm of Bain Capital.





Though Romney has said his work at the Boston-based private equity firm ultimately led to the creation of 100,000 jobs, Gingrich said Romney's pursuit of wealth exacted a huge cost.





"What you have to raise questions about is, somebody goes out, invests a certain amount of money, say $30 million, takes out an amount, say $180 million -- six to one return -- and then the company goes bankrupt," Gingrich said. "Now, you have to ask a question: Is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of other people and walk off with the money? Or is that, in fact, a little bit of a flawed system? And so I do draw a distinction between looting a company, leaving behind broken families and broken neighbors, and leaving behind a factory that should be there."





Romney fired back that Gingrich and others were joining President Barack Obama in attacking the free enterprise system.





"As we'll find out, free enterprise will be on trial," Romney said. "
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