Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Republican presidential candidates, left to right, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich Mitt Romney participate in a debate sponsored by CNN, the Republican Party of Florida and the Hispanic Leadership Network at the University North Florida on Jan. 26, 2012 in Jacksonville, Florida.

Republican presidential candidates, left to right, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich Mitt Romney participate in a debate sponsored by CNN, the Republican Party of Florida and the Hispanic Leadership Network at the University North Florida on Jan. 26, 2012 in Jacksonville, Florida. Photographer: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Jan. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Mitt Romney assailed Newt Gingrich repeatedly in the final televised Republican presidential debate before Florida’s Jan. 31 primary, putting the former U.S. House speaker on the defensive for his campaign tactics and policies. Peter Cook reports on Bloomberg Television's "InsideTrack." (Source: Bloomberg)

Jan. 26 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. investors are rooting for Mitt Romney and those overseas are for Barack Obama. The expectation in markets of every region is that Obama will be re-elected president in November, an outlook shared by 72 percent of respondents worldwide in a quarterly Bloomberg Global Poll of 1,209 Bloomberg customers who are investors, traders or analysts, conducted Jan. 23-24. Stephanie Ruhle and Sara Eisen report on Bloomberg Television's "InsideTrack." (Source: Bloomberg)

Jan. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Joann Weiner, a tax analyst with Bloomberg Government and former senior economist with the Treasury Department’s Office of Tax Analysis, discusses Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's tax return. Romney released his returns for 2010 and an estimate for 2011 last night. Weiner speaks with Margaret Brennan on Bloomberg Television's "InBusiness with Margaret Brennan." (Source: Bloomberg)

Jan. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Matthew Dowd, Bloomberg political analyst and former chief campaign strategist for George W. Bush, talks about last night's Republican presidential debate in Florida and outlook for the state's primary on Jan. 31. Dowd, speaking with Betty Liu on Bloomberg Television's "In the Loop," also discusses the Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index. (Source: Bloomberg)

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Former U.S. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, left, and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney during an exchange at the Florida Republican Presidential debate in Jacksonville, Florida.

Former U.S. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, left, and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney during an exchange at the Florida Republican Presidential debate in Jacksonville, Florida. Photographer: Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Republican presidential candidates, former U.S. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, left and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney place their hands over their hearts during the National Anthem at the start of a debate in Jacksonville, Florida.

Republican presidential candidates, former U.S. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, left and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney place their hands over their hearts during the National Anthem at the start of a debate in Jacksonville, Florida. Photographer: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich stepped up their attacks the day after a contentious presidential debate in Florida, each dispatching allies to tarnish the other’s credibility and conservative credentials.

Romney’s campaign organized a handful of former President Ronald Reagan’s top national security hands to paint onetime U.S. House Speaker Gingrich as an unreliable ally on defense matters who is exaggerating his role in the party icon’s presidency. A Gingrich-aligned veteran of Reagan’s tenure said Romney was “on the wrong side of the Republican Party.”

Romney, 64, a former governor of Massachusetts, has taken a more aggressive posture before Florida’s Jan. 31 primary as he seeks to blunt Gingrich’s challenge to him for the party nomination in a state that represents the most diverse electorate so far of the primary campaign.

While recent surveys suggest a tight race in Florida, with Romney and Gingrich, 68, separated by 2 percentage points, a poll of 580 likely Republican primary voters released this morning by Hamden, Connecticut-based Quinnipiac University shows Romney pulling away from Gingrich, 38 percent to 29 percent. The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.

On a conference call arranged by Romney’s campaign, former Navy Secretary John Lehman said Gingrich’s “leadership has always been very erratic on virtually all subjects, but especially in defense, and we cannot have an erratic leader in these perilous times.”

Some of the former Reagan officials cited March 1986 remarks Gingrich gave in which they said he sharply criticized Reagan’s approach to the Cold War.

“If Newt has shown one thing, he does not have good judgment,” said Gerald Carmen, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. “Who in the world would ever trust the United States to Newt’s judgment?”

In a dueling call for reporters run by the Gingrich camp, former Reagan National Security adviser Robert McFarlane said the former speaker was a “reliable voice” and “enthusiastic supporter” on Reagan’s defense agenda.

“Romney’s on the wrong side of the Republican Party,” Reagan biographer Craig Shirley said. “He is from the moderate, establishment, elitist part of the party.”

Gingrich, he added, is on the “Rockefeller, Reagan side, and that’s why Romney has made this an issue, because he knows he’s on the losing side, or believes that he’s on the losing side of the argument.”

Gingrich’s financial supporters are airing advertisements in Florida showing pictures of the former congressman and Reagan seated side by side.

The competing surrogates highlighted the sharpening rivalry between the leading Republican contenders the day after Romney assailed Gingrich in the televised debate for his campaign tactics and rhetoric.

Romney accused Gingrich last night of “repulsive” rhetoric that twisted the former Massachusetts governor’s position on immigration, making accusations in media interviews that Gingrich was unwilling to repeat during the debate and criticizing Romney’s success as a private-equity executive.

Romney demanded an apology in the debate’s first moments because Gingrich had branded him the most “anti-immigrant” candidate among the Republicans.

“The idea that I’m anti-immigrant is repulsive; don’t use a term like that,” Romney said at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville. He said Gingrich’s charge was an example of “the over-the-top rhetoric” prevalent in U.S. politics.

Gingrich, who defeated Romney by 12 percentage points in South Carolina’s Jan. 21 primary, stood by his criticisms of Romney while opening no new lines of attack in the debate. The debate, the 19th of the Republican presidential contest, also included former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum and U.S. Representative Ron Paul of Texas.

Gingrich defended his characterization of Romney as anti- immigrant, which his campaign leveled in a Spanish-language radio ad that aired in Florida and has since been withdrawn. He said the label fits because Romney “attacked pretty ferociously” Gingrich’s previous assertions that, as part of cracking down on illegal immigration, “grandmothers and grandfathers aren’t going to be successfully deported.”

Later, Romney challenged criticisms Gingrich made of his wealth this week, after revelations in his tax returns released Jan. 24 that he holds investments in the Cayman Islands and had a Swiss bank account.

When Gingrich declined an invitation from CNN debate moderator Wolf Blitzer to address the issue, Romney quickly said, “Wouldn’t it be nice if people didn’t make accusations somewhere else that they weren’t willing to defend here?”

“OK, all right,” Gingrich said when pressed. “Mitt, I did say I thought it was unusual. And I don’t know of any American president who has had a Swiss bank account.”

Working to rebound from Romney’s performance, Gingrich’s campaign announced plans today to air a television ad in Florida suggesting Romney was dishonest in his criticisms of Gingrich.

“What kind of man would mislead, distort, and deceive just to win an election?” the narrator of the advertisement says. “This man would be Mitt Romney.”

It disputes Romney’s claim last night that he had always voted Republican when he had the chance, citing his 1992 vote for Democratic presidential candidate Paul Tsongas when former President George H.W. Bush was vying with Pat Buchanan for the Republican nomination.

The advertisement also questions Romney’s assertion that any investments he had in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in a blind trust over which he had no control, and his claim during the debate that he hadn’t seen an attack ad his own campaign is running against Gingrich.

“If we can’t trust Romney in a debate, how can we trust him in the White House?” the ad concludes.

“It is laughable to see lectures on honesty coming from a paid influence peddler who suffered an unprecedented ethics reprimand, was forced to pay a $300,000 penalty, and resigned in disgrace at the hands of his own party,” said Andrea Saul, a Romney campaign spokeswoman.

Regarded by both parties as a pivotal state in the general election, Florida has also seen its contest rise in importance in recent days as the Republican primaries have produced three different winners in three different states: Santorum in Iowa, Romney in New Hampshire and Gingrich in South Carolina.

The winner in Florida (NFSEFL) will get all of the state’s 50 convention delegates and momentum leading into a group of primaries and caucuses in February that lead up to “Super Tuesday” on March 6, when 10 states vote.

Gingrich and Romney have been competing intensely in recent days for the loyalties of Florida’s Hispanic voters, who comprise roughly a tenth of registered Republicans in Florida.

Gingrich today released an endorsement letter from 19 Hispanic leaders who said Romney has “not provided a real solution on behalf of the 12+ million immigrants who live in the shadows of the American communities.”

Gingrich spoke to the Hispanic Leadership Network. Romney was to address the same conservative, pro-Republican group later.

After leaving Miami, Gingrich was scheduled to attend a Republican Jewish Coalition rally to the north. Casino executive Sheldon Adelson, who with his wife, Miriam, have given $10 million to a pro-Gingrich political action committee, is a member of the coalition’s board of directors.

To contact the reporters on this story: Julie Hirschfeld Davis in Jacksonville at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ; Jonathan D. Salant in Miami at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ;

(Blomberg)