Rick Santorum, Gingrich, Romney and Ron Paul stand for the national anthem last night before doing battle. (Reuters)
WASHINGTON — Swiss miss!
Mitt Romney turned back attacks on his Swiss bank account from Newt Gingrich — while slamming him on immigration, housing and a lunar colony.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if people didn’t make accusations somewhere else that they weren’t willing to defend here?” Romney said after Gingrich resisted repeating charges he had made earlier yesterday about Romney’s recently revealed Swiss account and offshore funds.
When Gingrich did mention the issue, the former Massachusetts governor pivoted to accuse him of “attacking me because of my investments of my money.”
“What you’ve accomplished in your life shouldn’t be seen as a detriment. It should be seen as an asset to help America,” Romney said to applause at the CNN debate in Jacksonville, Fla.
Gingrich, still smarting over Romney’s hits on his consulting work for home-loan giant Freddie Mac, replied, “It would be nice if you had the same standard for other people that you would like applied to you.”
Accusing him of “over-the-top rhetoric,” Romney, who yesterday regained the lead in state polls, also blasted the former House speaker for calling him the most “anti-immigrant” candidate on the stage.
“Mr. Speaker, I’m not anti-immigrant. My father was born in Mexico. My wife’s father was born in Wales,” Romney said.
“I’m not going to go find grandmothers and take them out of their homes and deport them,” he added. “Those are your words, not my words . . . Our problem is not 11 million grandmothers.”
Gingrich complained that Romney had attacked him “pretty ferociously” for supporting a guest-worker program that would allow immigrants with longstanding ties to remain.
“Grandmothers and grandfathers aren’t going to be deported,” Gingrich said.
“I am prepared to be very tough and very bold, but I’m also prepared to be realistic.”
Pleading for attention and civility, former Sen. Rick Santorum asked his rivals to “set aside” their trash talk. He said that there was nothing wrong with Gingrich advising companies and that Romney is a “wealthy guy because he worked hard.”
“Leave that alone and focus on the issues,” Santorum said.
Romney also ridiculed Gingrich’s idea for a lunar colony that could some day get statehood.
“If I had a business executive say to me they wanted to spend a few hundred billion dollars to build a colony on the moon, I’d say, ‘You’re fired,’ ” Romney said.
When Gingrich asked him to tell “how much money he’s made” off Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, as well as Goldman Sachs holdings, Romney pounced.
“I know that sounds like an enormous revelation, but have you checked your own investments? You also have investments for mutual funds that also invest in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,” he said, earning cheers.
Earlier yesterday, a Rasmussen poll showed Romney led Gingrich 38 to 31 percent in Florida, a reversal from four days ago.