Romney, who has abandoned his strategy of ignoring rivals as the South Carolina race tightens, homed in on the former speaker, saying that he found Gingrich's oft-repeated claims that he had created millions of jobs while working with President Reagan "amusing" given that businesses create jobs, not government.
Romney said he had looked at Reagan's diary and found Gingrich mentioned once.
"He says you had an idea … and it wasn't a very good idea, and he dismissed it. That's the entire mention. And, I mean, he mentions George Bush a hundred times. He even mentions my dad once."
Romney's father, the late presidential candidate and Michigan Gov. George Romney, came up on another occasion when an audience member asked the candidates whether they would release their tax returns. Romney's father released 12 years of returns, and Romney was asked whether he would do the same.
Romney said he would release his 2011 returns after he filed them in April and "maybe" replicate his father's release. The audience groaned.
King asked why he wouldn't release the previous year's returns before the South Carolina primary Saturday.
"Because I want to make sure that I beat President Obama," he said. "And every time we release things drip by drip, the Democrats go out with another array of attacks."
Gingrich replied that he released his return "an hour ago," Paul said he was embarrassed by how little he made, and Santorum said he prepared his own returns and would release them when he went home and could get them off his computer.
Gingrich and his wife, Callista, paid $994,708 in federal taxes on gross income of $3,142,066 in 2010, according to copies of the couple's return. The 31.5% tax rate paid by the Gingriches is roughly double the amount that Romney this week said he paid on his much larger income.
Santorum, the son of an immigrant, connected with the audience on several occasions, notably when he spoke out against Gingrich's proposal to allow some illegal immigrants to apply for legal residency if they have been in the country 25 years, have deep ties to their community and meet other requirements.
"I grieve for people who have been here 25 years and maybe have to be separated from their family if they were picked up and deported," Santorum said. "But my father grieved for his father when he came to this country and lived here five years, and other folks who sacrificed, who came here to America, did it the right way, according to the law, because America was worth it. And if you want to be an American, the first thing you should do is respect our laws and obey our laws."
As usual, Paul, a Texas congressman, was given less attention than the other candidates, to the point that his supporters once chimed in loudly from the audience and demanded that he be allowed to answer a question on abortion that the other three men answered. King assented.
"It's a medical subject and I'm a doctor," said Paul, who argued that government should get out of healthcare because any federal funding could end up being used to pay for abortion.
PHOTOS: Charleston Republican presidential debate
seema.mehta@latimes.com
john.hoeffel@latimes.com.
Times staff writer Michael Finnegan in North Charleston contributed to this report.
