Answering a charge that's at the root of his campaign's inability to break out from the Republican field, Mitt Romney rejected the notion that he's a candidate without a core at the start of tonight's presidential debate.

Romney was first asked to explain his view on the government's rescue plan for the auto industry so important to the economy of Michigan, the site of the ninth debate of the primary season. The son of the state's former governor said he cared about the auto industry unlike any other candidate on stage.

"We would have had a private-sector bailout -- private-sector restructuring and bankruptcy with the private sector guiding [it] ... as opposed to what we had with the government playing its heavy hand," he said.