Santorum fights back against critics with barbs

PHILIP ELLIOTT

Asso­ci­ated Press

AIKEN, S.C. (AP) — Search­ing for trac­tion, Rick San­to­rum is on the attack these days — against every­one, it seems.

On Tues­day alone, the Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial can­di­date branded Mitt Rom­ney a lib­eral, said Newt Gingrich’s pol­icy posi­tions have been “all over the place” and laughed that Ron Paul has been run­ning for pres­i­dent “since 1938.”

The more acer­bic tone comes as the South Car­olina pri­mary looms on Sat­ur­day and with polls show­ing San­to­rum trail­ing Rom­ney, the front-runner, and other rivals.

In the effort to claw his way to the front of the pack, San­to­rum cou­pled his scathing cri­tiques of his rivals on the cam­paign trail with a new TV ad that com­pares Rom­ney to Pres­i­dent Barack Obama.

“Obama sup­ported the Wall Street bailouts. So did Rom­ney. Obama gave us rad­i­cal Oba­macare that was based on Rom­n­ey­care,” the ad’s nar­ra­tor says. “Obama’s a lib­eral on social issues. Rom­ney once bragged he’s even more lib­eral than Ted Kennedy on social issues.”

The ad then asks: “Why would we ever vote for some­one who is just like Obama?”

San­to­rum urged South Car­olina con­ser­v­a­tives to coa­lesce around one of their own or face Rom­ney as the GOP nominee.

“He’s got a lot of money, but he doesn’t have the con­vic­tions, the authen­tic­ity nor the record that is nec­es­sary to win this elec­tion,” San­to­rum told vot­ers. “Please consolidate.”

At the same time, he said Gin­grich wasn’t the best con­ser­v­a­tive option.

“Newt is bold, but he is all over the place,” San­to­rum con­tin­ued. “Attack­ing cap­i­tal­ism, sup­port­ing cap­i­tal­ism. Against global warm­ing, for global warm­ing. We need some­one who is bold and consistent.”

San­to­rum, often sar­cas­tic as a cam­paigner, offered this expla­na­tion for how Paul, 76, had bested him in the nation’s first pri­mary: “Con­gress­man Paul had been run­ning in New Hamp­shire for pres­i­dent since 1938.”

Con­ser­v­a­tives appeared to be rec­og­niz­ing their dilemma: Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Gin­grich and San­to­rum all were vying to emerge as the lead­ing alter­na­tive to Rom­ney but were frac­tur­ing their support.

“We con­ser­v­a­tives are split­ting the vote,” Aiken voter Michele Mer­ritt told San­to­rum. “Is there not any­thing that those con­ser­v­a­tives can do to get together for the good of the coun­try and try to coa­lesce behind one per­son that will be able to take on Rom­ney and win? Because I really, really don’t want Rom­ney to get the nomination.”

San­to­rum nod­ded but stopped short of urg­ing any­one to exit from the race.

“I believe every­body has a right to be in this race if they want to be in this race and fight as hard as they want for as long as they want,” he later told reporters in Lex­ing­ton. “I’m not into polit­i­cal games, or polit­i­cal deals.”

San­to­rum fin­ished a close sec­ond in Iowa on a shoe­string bud­get. Fundrais­ing took off after that and he was finally in a posi­tion to spend some of the $3 mil­lion he raised that week.

Romney’s allies, mean­while, were air­ing an ad that says San­to­rum “even voted to let con­victed felons vote.”

San­to­rum com­plained that the TV spot, while refer­ring to “felons,” shows some­one in an orange prison jump­suit, sug­gest­ing that San­to­rum would allow them to vote while still incar­cer­ated. San­to­rum has sup­ported vot­ing rights only for those who have served their sen­tences and been released.

He called the ad “one of the cheap­est shots ever” and said Rom­ney should tell his allies to back off.

“I would never, ever, ever want to be affil­i­ated or asso­ci­ated with any­body doing some­thing for me that I know is bla­tantly false,” San­to­rum said.

Rom­ney coun­tered that “peo­ple who have been released from prison are still called felons if they’ve com­mit­ted felonies.”

Posted by AP News on Jan 17 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.