In Florida, Romney, Gingrich trade jabs over wealth, influence

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney battled for primacy Thursday in the final debate before next week's high-stakes Florida Republican presidential primary amid a race that has grown nastier in recent days and exposed the fault lines of class and ideology in the party.

The two wrestled over their respective involvement in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, quasi-government mortgage companies that some hold partly responsible for the real estate crash, and their stances on immigration.

Gingrich noted that Romney, in addition to holding investments in the mortgage companies, owned stock in the investment bank Goldman Sachs, which has foreclosed on homeowners in Florida. "Maybe Gov. Romney in the spirit of openness should tell us how much money he's made off of how many households that have been foreclosed by his investments," he said.

Romney, who has made an issue of Gingrich's consulting work for Freddie Mac, shot back that his investments were made by a blind trust and were in mutual funds, not stock.

"But what the speaker did was to work as a spokesman to promote Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to protect them. . . . He got paid $1.6 million for that," Romney said.

Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, said it was time to stop the "petty personal politics" over trivial issues and urged a change of subject.

"Can we set aside that Newt was a member of Congress and used the skills that he developed as a member of Congress to go out and advise companies - and that's not the worst thing in the world - and that Mitt Romney is a wealthy guy because he worked hard? You guys should focus on the issues."

The two-hour debate, the 18th in a series whose twists and turns have dominated the GOP nominating contest, was broadcast nationally on CNN. This time, there was a live audience in the hall at the University of North Florida.

Gingrich has fed off the live crowds at debates, and he seemed to miss the feedback in a match Monday night, when host NBC required attendees to refrain from applauding. Romney's campaign has expressed annoyance with the reality-show atmosphere of most of the debates, in which crowds of GOP activists jeer at the gladiators.

Santorum and libertarian Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who also debated, have trailed in the Florida polls; the focus Thursday was on the increasingly personal match between Gingrich and Romney.