Santorum has said he backed Romney in 2008 because he was more conservative than the eventual nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona. He said last week he backed Specter, who was then a Republican, because he had pledged in a conversation to support conservative judges as head of the Senate Judiciary Committee. (Specter has since said there was no agreement between the two men.)
BY SEEMA MEHTA AND MAEVE RESTON | LOS ANGELES TIMES
ST. CLAIRE SHORES, Mich. — Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney lashed out at one another over their conservative credentials Saturday, in exchanges that have grown increasingly bitter as Michigan’s Tuesday presidential primary nears.
At a tea party rally in St. Claire Shores, Santorum likened Romney to President Barack Obama and scoffed at his charge that Santorum is not conservative.
“It’s laughable for Gov. Romney to suggest I am not a conservative. It is absolutely laughable to have a liberal (former) governor of Massachusetts suggest that I am not a conservative,” said Santorum, ticking off a list of positions Romney has taken, such as supporting the Wall Street bailout and creating a state health care plan that was a model for Obama’s federal program.
Romney, he said, has shifted his ideology when it suited him, running as a liberal for the U.S. Senate, a moderate for governor and now as a conservative for president.
“Folks, this is an issue of trust,” he told a few hundred supporters. “Imagine what he’s going to do when he’s in the general election.”
He criticized the tax plan Romney laid out earlier in the week that would reduce all income tax rates by 20 percent, noting Romney said he would make the plan revenue-neutral by limiting mortgage and charitable deductions for the “top 1 percent.”
“Hmmm, where have I heard that before?” Santorum said. “We have a Republican running for president who’s campaigning as an Occupy Wall Streeter.”
“What is Gov. Romney doing? He’s adopting President Obama’s plan to limit contributions to the very institutions that allow limited government to work. He doesn’t understand how America works any more than Barack Obama understands how America works,” Santorum said.
Santorum repeated the criticisms later at a gathering in Troy of Americans for Prosperity, a tea-party-affiliated fundraising group, at which Romney also appeared. Both candidates were well-received by the crowd of several hundred. But Santorum’s passionate pitch drew the more enthusiastic response, with hundreds of tea partyers leaping to their feet at the close to applaud and cheer.
Romney, who has been bludgeoning the former Pennsylvania senator over the airwaves, kept up the pressure across Michigan on Saturday, telling audiences Santorum could not be relied upon to stand for conservative principles.
Speaking from notes at the Americans for Prosperity gathering after Santorum delivered a blistering critique of Romney’s record, the former Massachusetts governor also outlined what he said was proof of his own conservative bearing.
Romney described efforts as governor to crack down on illegal immigration and block a bill that would have allowed “cloning and embryo farming in our state.”
In a diversion that is not generally part of his stump speech, he also argued he became “the nation’s champion” in fighting to reverse the Massachusetts law allowing gay marriage.
“I can attest for my conservative credentials by quoting someone who endorsed me in my 2008 campaign: Sen. Santorum,” Romney told the crowd, before noting Santorum praised him on the Laura Ingraham show four years ago as “a guy who is really conservative and who we can trust.”
Romney also reminded the group of Santorum’s support for former Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania’s longtime senator who was reviled by many conservatives and ultimately became a Democrat.
Naming Specter no less than seven times, Romney noted Santorum supported Specter’s re-election campaigns as well as his run for president in 1996: “There were other conservatives running like Bob Dole. He didn’t support them; he supported the pro-choice candidate Arlen Specter,” Romney said.
Unmentioned by Romney was that he, like Specter, favored abortion rights during that period.
Santorum has said he backed Romney in 2008 because he was more conservative than the eventual nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona. He said last week he backed Specter, who was then a Republican, because he had pledged in a conversation to support conservative judges as head of the Senate Judiciary Committee. (Specter has since said there was no agreement between the two men.)