To listen to Mitt Romney's Republican rivals, the former Massachusetts governor isn't a true enough conservative to deserve the GOP nomination. But in their rush to criticize Mr. Romney, the other candidates aren't doing much to shore up their own free-market credentials.

With Mr. Romney now leading by double-digits in both New Hampshire and South Carolina, his opponents have taken off the gloves -- and wrapped their bare hands around the front-runner's time at Bain Capital. Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman are trashing Mr. Romney for leading the sort of company that is at the heart of a risk-taking, free-market, America, and for daring to make a lot of money. Close your eyes and most of these complaints could be coming straight from the mouth of Barack Obama.

Mr. Gingrich accused Mr. Romney of "bankrupting companies and laying off employees." A pro-Gingrich Super PAC is meanwhile gearing up to release a 27-minute video that highlights workers who lost their jobs after being restructured by Bain. The PAC has also created an anti-Romney website devoted to the topic: Mr. Perry, desperate to jumpstart his flailing campaign in South Carolina, said the only time Mr. Romney had ever worried about a pink slip was "whether he was going to have enough of them to hand out." Even Mr. Huntsman, who likes to pitch himself as another candidate-manager, snapped that "What is clear is [Mr. Romney] likes firing people. I like creating jobs."

Actually, the only thing that is clear is that the GOP field is ditching first principles in a desperate attempt to stop the Romney locomotive. The candidates say that the attacks on Mr. Romney aren't a criticism of the free market. Their spin is that Bain was capitalism-gone-wrong, a firm that existed to strip wealth from companies and funnel it to "raiders" like Mr. Romney. Mr. Gingrich, for instance, explained that "those of us who believe in free markets . . . would find it pretty hard to justify rich people figuring out clever, legal ways to loot out a company." Mr. Perry said "there is something inherently wrong when getting rich off failure and sticking it to someone else is how you do your business."

There's something more wrong, at least for many conservative voters, with demonstrating a poor grasp of the fundamentals of the free market. Bain cut jobs. It also created jobs. It made money. It also lost money. This is what happens in business, and there is no version of it that is warm and fuzzy, and where everyone wins. To beat on Bain -- and its business of taking big risks, restructuring firms, making bets -- is to beat on every other investment firm, private-equity group, and hedge fund in America. The voters understand this, too, which is why Mr. Gingrich reaped a backlash in December, the first time he took a shot at Mr. Romney's business record. He found out then how difficult it is to hit Mr. Romney on this issue without also leaving voters with doubts as to his own beliefs in the basics of capitalism.

What voters might resent more is the lazy nature of the attacks. Mr. Romney isn't lacking in liabilities with a conservative base -- from his Massachusetts health-care experiment to his uninspired tax plans to his former positions on all manner of issues. Voters would no doubt prefer to hear his rivals making sharp contrasts with Mr. Romney over these flashpoints. Instead, they're getting a earful of cheap shots about his time making money.
