Republican Presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani may have similar positions on immigration, health care and the war in Iraq, but they had two very different experiences on the New Hampshire campaign trail yesterday.

Giuliani was taken aback during a morning town-hall meeting at Brookstone Event Center in Derry by a question about his family from Katherine Prudhomme-O'Brien, a Derry mother.

"I'm going to phrase it a lot more gentle than my nephew did, but he wanted to know how you could expect the loyal following of Americans when you are not getting it from your own family?" she asked, and then apologized for being blunt.

Many in the crowd of 120 people gathered in the town-hall style meeting shifted uncomfortably in their seats before the former mayor of New York City repeated the question and answered.

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"I love my family very, very much and will do anything for them. There are complexities in every family in America," Giuliani said quietly. "The best thing I can say is kind of, 'Leave my family alone, just like I'll leave your family alone.' "

The candidate has a daughter who has indicated she will back Democrat Barack Obama and a son who said he was estranged from his father for a period. Giuliani's divorce from their mother, Donna Hanover, was a highly public event while he was mayor.

PRUDHOMME-O'BRIEN

Prudhomme-O'Brien said she is not a novice to retail politics and has taken advantage of face-time with other candidates to ask similarly tough questions, including an exchange with Al Gore in 1999 about an alleged rape committed by Bill Clinton.

At an evening town hall meeting with former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney in Londonderry, she said if given the chance she would press him on why New Hampshire residents who work in Massachusetts and pay income taxes there do not get in-state tuition for college or other benefits.

Like a number of other voters, she went to both of the well-attended question-and-answer sessions. Both candidates called on the legacy of Ronald Reagan to define their political leanings, laying out similar plans for a crackdown on illegal immigration, privatized health care and staying the course for the war in Iraq.

After each session, most of the undecided voters in the audience said it was still too early to say who they would vote for, though some already had strong opinions.

"I think Romney is a lot of sizzle and no steak or as they say in Texas: all hat and no cattle," said Rich Florino, a Windham resident who supports Giuliani. "Romney says a lot of the right things and I think he is learning, but nowhere as close to Rudy as far as experience or acumen as far as being a politician."

Roger Parker of Westford, Mass., said he was going to vote for Romney "because Mitt is the only one with the same wife."

Giuliani has remarried since his divorce.

For the last week, Giuliani has been visiting three early voting states -- South Carolina, Iowa and New Hampshire -- after focusing for several weeks on California and other states that will vote later, most on Feb. 5. He said his campaign has solidified his position in the larger states and is now stepping up efforts in the earliest states.

"We have our biggest organizations now in Iowa and New Hampshire; we're going to spend a lot more time here," he told The Associated Press.

Giuliani will be in Merrimack, Manchester, Milford and Peterborough today. Romney has no public events in the state.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.