This past Saturday, six of the GOP presidential candiates gathered for a debate in Des Moines, Iowa. While there were some sharp words exchanged, the debate began on a strong note, with questions about jobs and the economy. Here’s what the candidates had to say:

Mitt Romney (In answer to the question “What is your distinguishing idea, distinguishing, from all of the others on this stage, about how to create jobs in this create, how to bring jobs back from overseas.”):

Number three, to have trade policies that make sense for America, not just for the people with whom we trade.
This president has not done that. And China, that's been cheating, has to be cracked down on.

Rick Santorum:

Well, I was just down in Fremont County, which is down in the far southwest corner of the state, and they just lost about, a couple hundred jobs at a ConAgra plant down there. And Governor Branstad and Lieutenant Governor Reynolds understand, that's why they asked us to have a forum here in Pella a few weeks ago on manufacturing.

They understand that the heartland of America is suffering because the manufacturing economy of this country continues to go down. We used to have 21% of people employed in this country in manufacturing, it's now nine. And it hurts disproportionately small town and rural America. So what I learned from traveling around Iowa is we had to get a plan together that'll revitalized manufacturing.

So I took the corporate tax, not the 12%. I zeroed it out for all manufacturers. We want manufacture, we want "Made in the U.S.A." to be the moniker under my administration.

The star of the evening may have been moderator Diane Sawyer, who attempted to steer the discussion toward jobs, correctly citing it as the number one issue on the minds of the voters. She even noted after the first round of questioning that Mitt Romney was the only candidate who adequately addressed the issue:

I just wanna point out, I think that Governor Romney is the only one who actually gave a four-year, first-term number, which was again, 11.5 million jobs. Wondered if anyone else wanted to come in with a four-year, first-term promise for the American people.