Romney shifts focus to Santorum ahead of Tuesday caucuses

 

GRAND JUNCTION, CO -- Mitt Romney's campaign has begun to train its sights on Rick Santorum over the past 48 hours, reflecting the Romney campaign's concern that the former Pennsylvania senator may pose the freshest threat to their frontrunner status.

The Romney campaign released a barrage of opposition research on Santorum on Monday morning, the type of offensive tactic that had previously been reserved for Newt Gingrich and, before him, Texas Gov. Rick Perry. The former Massachusetts governor's campaign worked to link Santorum to pork barrel spending during his time in Congress, and touting his endorsement of Governor Romney in the last presidential race. 

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty assailed Santorum's record on spending during a conference call with reporters, listing the litany of earmarks Santorum had supported -- and has subsequently defended -- during his time in Congress.

And, in a reflection of the changing dynamics in the GOP nominating battle, Pawlenty sought to downplay expectations for Romney's performance in tomorrow's Minnesota caucuses -- a minor nominating contest, but one in which Santorum believes he might be able to score a February upset.

"I think it's going to be a tight race. Mitt Romney is competitive here," Pawlenty told Andrea Mitchell in an MSNBC interview this afternoon, repeating a point he made on the conference call. "I think you'll see a clumping result tomorrow. But it's certainly a place where other candidates are going to have a stronghold, and it's not going to be a walk in the park for Mitt Romney."

Why the change in focus? It's reflective of a change in political geography and political realities that opens the door for Santorum to climb back into the top tier of candidates this week.

Social conservatives make up a greater proportion of the voters in Minnesota, whose caucus-goers might most closely resemble caucus-goers in Iowa -- the contest in which Santorum barely edged Romney on Jan. 3. Unlike in Iowa, though, Romney doesn't have the benefit of having spent the kind of money as he did in Iowa, and his infrastructure there is less developed than it was in the Hawkeye State.

Campaigning this morning in Rochester, and clearly enjoying the chance to scrap with the frontrunner, Santorum delivered a speech attacking Romney for his Massachusetts healthcare plan, labeling it "Obamneycare" -- a term coined, ironically, by Pawlenty this June.

"The press likes to write the story that there is an inevitability to 'Obama light' on health care being the Republican nominee. That would be a devastating thing for the chances of us who would like to see President Obama defeated in the next election," he said. "Gov. Romney is dead wrong on the most important issue of the day and he should not be our nominee."

Santorum's campaign has aggressively circulated the results of computerized polling (data not used by NBC News) suggesting a surge in momentum for their candidate in Minnesota.

For the Romney campaign's part, they've largely ignored Minnesota and Missouri. Romney hasn't campaigned in Missouri at all in 2012, and has made only one stop in Minnesota: taking part in a rally in Eagan last week. Today, Romney will send surrogates John Bolton and Pawlenty to campaign for him in Minnesota, while he campaigns in Colorado for the next two days.

On Jan. 30, Romney was asked by a reporter what states he thought could present uphill battles going forward. Minnesota was the first state to pass his lips, and he described it as one of a number of states that present "challenges and opportunities, and as a "state that’s hard to predict how they’ll make their decision."

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One thing I'm sure of is that you are an idiot. No county in Pennsylvania is going to vote 100% Republican (or 100% Democratic). They never have, and they never will.

  • 1 vote
Reply#29 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 8:08 PM EST

There is more proof for what Prophet Joseph Smith taught than any other religion. Prophet Joseph Smith explained many mysteries that other prophets were not able to explain in the King Follett Discourse. Based on Joseph Smith's teachings, Lorenzo Snow, the fifth president of the Mormon church, wrote that: "As man is, God once was; As God is, man may be." Look into this truth yourself. God was a man before he even became a God. This is very comforting. So we too may be exalted to be gods. This is very encouraging. Doctrine and Covenants 132:20

  • 1 vote
Reply#30 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 8:09 PM EST

ah, a member of a religion declaring that their religion has more "proof" than others. lol.

  • 2 votes
#30.1 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 8:12 PM EST

How do we get this off topic, mindless religious ranting deleted?

  • 2 votes
#30.2 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 8:15 PM EST

Some people will believe anything, even the existence of golden tablets that mysteriously appeared and then just as mysteriously disappeared. Caydon dear, when you show me the golden tablets I'll pay attention to your rantings.

  • 1 vote
#30.3 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 8:49 PM EST
Reply

The Romney campaign released a barrage of opposition research on Santorum on Monday morning, the type of offensive tactic that had previously been reserved for Newt Gingrich and, before him, Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

Good Luck Willard ... inSanatorium is the *Jesus Candidate* ... I mean we did see the *Miracle of Iowa* or Eye-O-the Beholder ...

LOL.

    Reply#31 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 8:26 PM EST

    Mitten Romney had wanted to fly in his hero Ronald Reagan's hot air balloon. Unfortunately, Reagan had never bothered to take any lessons or advice, because he knew so much about everything certainly this would be no challenge to a great man like himself. After a hour or so, the Gipper realized he was totally lost and little Mitten was becoming frantic. Ronnie lowered his altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. The B-film actor shouted to him, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a wealthy fundraiser that my protege and I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

    The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, "You're in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above ground elevation of 2,346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude."

    Reagan rolled his eyes and said, "You must be a Democrat."

    "I am," replied the man. "How did you know?"

    "Well," answered the 20 Mule Team Borax soap salesman, "everything you told me is technically correct. But I have no idea what to do with your information, and I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help." A voice sqeaked "Yea that's right, your no help!!!", little Mitten shouted in support of his mentor.

    The man smiled and responded, "You two must be Reagan republicans."

    "Well I am Ronald Reagan!" replied the balloonist. "You must recognize me and Mitt!"

    "Well not really," said the man, "but it was pretty simple to figure out. You both don't know where you are or where you are going. You've both risen to where you are due to your capacity to create large quantities of hot air. You made promises you have no idea how to keep, ran up debts you can't pay, and now you expect someone else to fix your mess.

    • 1 vote
    Reply#32 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 8:51 PM EST

    Romney represents the top 1% . . . . he cannot relate to American Issues at large, only his own . . . Money . . .

    • 2 votes
    Reply#33 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 9:21 PM EST

    God is always God (read 2nd verse of 90th Psalm). the GOP is spinning its wheels in the presidential race. We who do not agree with them need to vote for uor man, but also don`t forget the down ballot races.

      Reply#34 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 9:36 PM EST

      Romney kissing Trump's ring shows his true character. Gingrich is self-imploding. Santorum painted himself into a circular room and Paul is the self aggrandizing proponent of every man for himself. To all the potential voters in Minnesota, Colorado, Maine, Arizona and Michigan. Remember this: If you vote for TEA party members you will be voting for a concentration of wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people and the concentration of power in stricter, less compassionate hands. You would be voting for those who would not spread around the tax pain to others protecting the top one percent.(1%) President Obama has proven his leadership abilities with a smaller government, 3 million private sector jobs, a Health Care plan, Wall Street reform, a vibrant auto industry, and president Obama's leadership had a hand in the taking out of Osama Bin Ladin, Atiyah abd al-Rahman, Anwar al-Awlaki(American Militant), and others(Moammar Khaddafy), while fighting off numerous Troubling Economic Antagonist­(TEA) party efforts to run other than jobs producing legislation through Congress! The president has or will ended the two unfunded Iraq and Afghan wars. These TEA-GOP-Republicans all stand as they did on stage saying nothing while the audience booed a service guy in uniform from Afghanistan asking about "Don't ask, Don't tell." These TEA-GOP-Republicans would take us back to war, run candidates who don't care about the poor because they have a safety program, but back and seek TEA party support, who in turn would de-fund and destroy the current social programs. These TEA-GOP-Republicans run candidates who would privatize Social Security and have that program run by their cronies and pay them handsomely to do nothing.

      • 2 votes
      Reply#35 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 9:43 PM EST

      Its kind of sad and pathetic to have Trump as your endorser when the president has Dirty Harry, Detroit, and apple pie in his corner.Looking good.

        #35.1 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 10:32 PM EST
        Reply

        Williard is a low life bottom feeder.

        • 1 vote
        Reply#36 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 9:43 PM EST

        Newt talked about sacred honor. What! What kind of honor is this."He walked out in the spring of 1980.... By September, I went into the hospital for my third surgery. The two girls came to see me, and said, "Daddy is downstairs. Could he come up?" When he got there, he wanted to discuss the terms of the divorce while I was recovering from my surgery." - Jackie, his first wife. One of Newt's daughters from that first marriage, who is also a conservative columnist, recently disputed that story (after Newt co-authored a book with her), saying among other things that her mother Jackie had initiated the divorce and that "the tumor [removed in a surgery the day before] was benign." Of course no one knew the tumor was benign at the time, so I don't know why that is supposed to matter. And CNN recently found court documents that show that Newt did in fact initiate that divorce -- which makes him a blatant liar, too. In any case, I'm inclined to believe the wife this happened to over the account of her daughter who was a child at that time (and earns easy money from her dad today.)

        The hospital visit wasn't the end of it, either. Shortly after the cancer ward visit, Newt stopped paying alimony and child support. Jackie had to take Newt to court to get money out of him, and her Baptist church needed to take up a collection to get his kids food and prevent the utilities from being cut off. He has never apologized for this or admitted it was a mistake.

          Reply#37 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 10:28 PM EST

          So, Romney is going to change his focus to a frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that sometimes is the result of anal sex?

            Reply#38 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 10:38 PM EST

            Here's an interesting interview with Newt Gingrich, Inner Quest for Newt Gingrich. The interviewer had interviewed 70+ family, friends and associates of Newt's. This will scare the...out of you."It was a very, very bad period of my life," Newt has admitted. "It had been getting steadily worse. I ultimately wound up at a point where suicide, or going insane, or divorce were the last three options." What will he do when things get really tough?

              Reply#39 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 10:40 PM EST

              "Newt Gingrich is playing out a personal agenda in a public forum, and it threatens the safety, health, and security of our most vulnerable people," says Mary Kahn. "And that's what frightens me about him. Someday he might be president." Kahn, a reporter who covered Newt in the mid-70s, also spent time with him socially until the early 80s as the wife of Chip Kahn, Gingrich's former campaign manager.The personal agenda of which Mary Kahn speaks is deeper that any philosophical or material odyssey. As the Speaker himself said, "I found a way to immerse my insecurities in a cause large enough to justify whatever I wanted it to." Inspired by the books and movies that have been his guides, Newt Gingrich has created a revolution, a mighty quest, and cast himself as hero, the John Wayne who rescues the nation from economic self-destruction and moral chaos. His childhood --shaped by the rejection by not just one but two fathers, and the manic-depressive illness of his mother-- created a psychic need so great that only the praise that attends a savior can fill the vacuum inside him. He drives himself monomaniacally, obsessed only with his goal. No amount of personal deprivation --100-hour workweeks, no vacations, no time with his wife-- diminishes his narcissistic vision of the global glory that will ultimately be his prize. Inner Quest for Newt Gingrich

                Reply#40 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 10:42 PM EST

                Rick Santorum was named among the top 3 most corrupt senators in 2005-2006 by a Washington watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

                • 1 vote
                Reply#41 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 10:46 PM EST

                I think it should be more concerning that in the last debate, he basically stated that he would use the military in Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Columbia, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. Sounds like a third world war to me.

                • 1 vote
                #41.1 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 10:52 PM EST

                i'm sure god will give him the green light, just like he did for bush in iraq.

                • 1 vote
                #41.2 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 10:55 PM EST

                I actually think Iraq was more strategic in nature. It brought out extremists from the entire region who wanted a shot at killing Americans into a better killing field.

                  #41.3 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 11:14 PM EST

                  uh, john, not really. It created insurgents who wanted to kill americans by providing lots of targets conveniently located. Al quada...the real terrorists...were weakened by attacks outside of iraq.

                  the so-called 'flypaper" theory was wrong to start with and wrong at the end...as if al quada was stupid enough to send all their people to one place to be killed by overwhelming superiority of numbers.

                    #41.4 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 11:31 PM EST
                    Reply

                    Rick Santorum

                    Voted 8 times to raise the debt ceiling, increasing the debt by $4.7 trillion dollars. He sponsored a $50 million dollar bill to build an indoor rain forest.

                      Reply#42 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 11:03 PM EST

                      Probably the most unjust is Santorum’s involment with Jack Abramoff in protecting the Tan family and their staggering array of human rights abuses on the Commwealth of Morthern Marianas Islands. The Tan family ran sweatshops on the islands and Santorum provided legislative cover for the truly rancid sweatshops, their human rights violations and almost fathomless moral quagmire of forced prostitution and abortions.

                      • 1 vote
                      Reply#43 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 11:04 PM EST

                      WE need a leader not a debater, not one who states he can manipulate opinion and get people to vote for him. Not one who had several affairs since 1962, yes folks, that is right he had many, Newt had more than two. In congress he wrote 24 fraudulent checks. How would you like to get a check from your employer that was fraudulent. He was fined $300,000 fro tax evasion. The FBI investigated him in a $10 million bribery scandal. The higher ups stopped it right when the FBI was going to arrest him. He earned $1.6 million from Freddie Mac while working one hour a month for them. That's a whopping $25,000 an hour. i would like to make that much, and the list goes on and on. What does it say about people that don't care about these items and voted for him anyway. Makes you wonder. What will they tell their children and grandchildren. That they voted for a gutless man that cheated on his wife and children and would not pay childcare, a man who continually cheated, lied, etc, etc?

                      Reply

                        Reply#44 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 11:15 PM EST

                        Newt quoted Mao: "Politics," he intoned, "is war without blood." Why is he crying that he got beat up when he preaches negativism.

                          Reply#45 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 11:17 PM EST

                          There are few things any current candidate has done more hypocritical than Newt's corporate lobbying work for the mortgage giant Freddie Mac. You see, Newt has publicly attacked Freddie Mac for years, blaming it for the 2008 housing crash. Then we found out that they paid him $1.6 million, as he went around and tried to convince Republicans to vote for Freddie Mac's favorite bills (and against regulations on them). Newt denies he was lobbying -- because his work didn't meet some technical definitions of lobbying -- and claimed, ridiculously that they paid him to be a "historian." No historian in history has earned $1.6 million.

                          Newt didn't report to Freddie Mac's director of history. (Spoiler alert; no company has one.) He reported to Craig Thomas, who was in charge of lobbying for them (and a registered lobbyist himself). and paid Newt $25,000 a month. On January 24, 2012, Newt finally released his contract. Guess what is not described in his services? History. In fact, Newt admits that he only talked to Freddie Mac staff for about one hour per month. At $25,000/ hour, that's a lot of history for a mortgage lender.

                          And Freddie Mac is not the only company Newt lobbied for. He had dozens of corporate clients who paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for his "services." He promoted his health care clients to legislators in Georgia or Florida who were considered changes in health care laws. He talked up projects that his clients IBM and HealthTrio were working on, to federal officials. He pushed for changes to Medicare that would enrich other clients of his. And one client, drug maker Novo Nordisk, described Newt's work this way in their annual report: "Such activities are often referred to as lobbying.”

                            Reply#46 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 11:18 PM EST

                            I don't think Newt has a chance at the nomination.

                              #46.1 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 11:21 PM EST
                              Reply

                              The Santorum Connection. Tom Delay and Jack Abramoff went to prison for the illegal pay to play lobbyist scandal, but the liaison, Rick Santorum, went unscathed. Santorum was an integral part of the influence-peddling scandal where the more a lobbyist paid the more access they had to influence political leaders. This was known as the K Street Project. As part of this Santorum had weekly meetings with lobbyist. When the scandal broker Santorum lied by stating that he stopped having his meetings with lobbyist but his Washington staffers confirm that he continued these secret meetings.

                                Reply#47 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 11:22 PM EST

                                Gingrich had become a prosperous man during his time in Congress,..The Washington Post reported last week that Gingrich’s web of enterprises ranging from a health care think tank to a documentary production company “generated close to $100 million in revenue over the past decade.”
                                The financial disclosure form Gingrich filed this summer as a presidential candidate reflects that prosperity.
                                The former Congressman now lists assets worth a minimum of $7.3 million — which does not include homes or other non-income-producing property — and millions more in income. His dividends from Gingrich Productions for the year before becoming a presidential candidate were just shy of $2.5 million, and his family-run talent agency paid him another $72,000. He reports no liabilities. Rollcall

                                  Reply#48 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 11:24 PM EST

                                  After loosing his senate position Rick Santorum earned millions of dollars including payments from a lobbying firm, an energy company engaged in controversial practice which pollutes ground water and endangers the public and a hospital conglomerate that was sued for allegedly defrauding the federal government. Santorum was a board of director for Universal Health Services which illegally billed the federal government. UHS paid $27.5 million dollars to settle the suite. Innocent children of a Pennsylvania public school district were deprived of valuable school funds when Santorum refused to pay the $100,000 education bill he owned to the school district.

                                    Reply#49 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 11:26 PM EST

                                    After a six year affair, Congressman Gingrich divorced his second wife and months later married Calista in 2000. Newt was 57 and Calista was 34. During the divorce proceedings, Congressman Gingrich refused to participate in the discovery process and finally claimed that he and Marianne had an "understanding" about his affairs. Marianne denied this claim, and in a subsequent interview stated that she could end Newt's political career in a single interview.
                                    At the end of both his marriages, Congressman Gingrich proposed to his new wife before asking his current wife for a divorce. Marianne stated that this was very telling of Congressman Gingrich's character. Before marrying Calista, Congressman Gingrich asked the Catholic Church to annul his 18 year marriage to Marianne.
                                    There have been numerous accussations of additional affairs during all phases of Congressman Gingrich's life, including a woman who claimed she had a relationship in the 1970's with Gingrich before he was a Congressman. Strangley enough, this woman states that Gingrich sought oral sex only so that he could later deny sexual relations if they were discovered. This was the same tactic used by President Clinton when he was accused of adultery.
                                    As Speaker of the House, Congressman Gingrich led the charge to impeach President Clinton. He has acknowledged that while he was doing this, he was carrying out an affair with his current wife. When asked about the hypocrisy of these actions, he has noted that President Clinton committed perjury to cover the affair and this was what he was impeached for and not the affair itself.
                                    However, in 1983 Congressman Gingrich made speeches in response to the affairs of other Congressional members lamenting the moral decline of leadership in America and claiming that the country cannot remain free without moral leaders. politicalguide

                                      Reply#50 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 11:28 PM EST

                                      the former speaker claims to be a Reagan conservative. However in another article by the National Review Online by Elliot Abrams, former assistant secretary of state for Ronald Reagan and deputy national security adviser for the George W. Bush wrote that Gingrich was often not a loyal supporter of Ronald Reagan but "often spewed insulting rhetoric" back at the administration. Abrams wrote:

                                      "He voted with the caucus, but his words should be remembered, for at the height of the bitter struggle with the Democratic leadership Gingrich chose to attack . . . Reagan."

                                        Reply#51 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 11:30 PM EST

                                        In Ronald Reagan's autobiography, "An American Life," he writes extensively about supply-side economics. He cites Jack Kemp several times. He never mentions Newt Gingrich.

                                        (However, in Reagan's massive 784-page diary, Newt's name does come up -- once. On Jan. 3, 1983, Reagan wrote that he met with "a group of young Repub Congressmen," and says that one of them, "Newt Gingrich," proposed freezing federal spending at 1983 levels, which Reagan rejected out of hand because it would "cripple our defense program.")

                                        I licked stamps for Reagan mailings when I was in high school. I didn't formulate supply-side economics or win the Cold War.

                                        Gingrich is credited -- mostly by himself -- for single-handedly engineering the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress.

                                        Actually, I think Clinton deserves the lion's share of the credit for that one. In November 1994, a majority of Americans didn't know Newt's name; they voted Republican in reaction to two years of Clinton's liberal policies.

                                        The current speaker of the House, John Boehner, presided over a bigger Republican victory last November, handing Democrats the largest single-party loss in the House since 1938. (Again, all glory to Obama for that one.) I don't see Boehner going around comparing himself to Winston Churchill or proposing that we make him president.

                                        Nor, by the way, does Boehner seem "scary" or "unlikable" -- which is how half to a majority of Americans described Gingrich after one year of seeing him as speaker.

                                        Boehner is also not likely to be reprimanded by the House Ethics Committee and fined $300,000, as Gingrich was his second term as speaker. Nor, as far as we know, is he sleeping with any of his female staffers in the middle of a sex scandal involving the White House, as Gingrich -- well, you know.

                                        Contrary to Gingrich's boast, "I balanced the budget for four straight years," he was one of 535 members of Congress -- he wasn't even a senator, who don't rule by simple majority vote like House members do. Balancing the budget required the votes of hundreds of representatives and senators -- many of whom did not come from safe Republican districts like Gingrich's -- as well as the acquiescence of President Clinton.

                                        His fellow House Republicans apparently did not consider Newt crucial to victory, inasmuch as they forced him out in 1999, after he had served just two terms as speaker.

                                          Reply#52 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 11:37 PM EST

                                          you mean "all glory to the Great Recession of 2008" for the huge dem losses in 2010, don't you? well, unless you want to attribute a part of it to racism, in which case obama would be "guilty" of being black.

                                          but I agree with your critique of newt.

                                            #52.1 - Tue Feb 7, 2012 12:12 AM EST
                                            Reply

                                            There is more proof for what Prophet Joseph Smith taught than any other religion. Prophet Joseph Smith explained many mysteries that other prophets were not able to explain in the King Follett Discourse. Based on Joseph Smith's teachings, Lorenzo Snow, the fifth president of the Mormon church, wrote that: "As man is, God once was; As God is, man may be." Look into this truth yourself. God was a man before he even became a God. This is very comforting. So we too may be exalted to be gods. This is very encouraging. Doctrine and Covenants 132:20

                                            • 1 vote
                                            Reply#53 - Mon Feb 6, 2012 11:41 PM EST

                                            Mr. Robison,

                                            What makes you think anyone cares about your Mormon beliefs on this public forum? If Mr. Smith's beliefs are so infallible, why are so many people disdainful of your religion? Must you proselytize everywhere? Given the certitude of your beliefs, what differentiates you from the Taliban?

                                            Hold fast to your beliefs, Mr. Robison. But keep them to yourself and certainly don't try to force your religious dogma on others.

                                              #53.1 - Tue Feb 7, 2012 12:51 AM EST

                                              Mr. Robinson,

                                              I'm not especially religious in nature but I really have to question one made up by a marginally literate twice or thrice jailed failure in business and farming. Finding golden book pages which only eleven of his closest buddies ever saw and then having them magically disappear. Magic reading glasses? Polygamy? Constantly run off by his neighbors? Everyone tithe to him? A new Angel named Maroni? Come on Dumbledore and Voldemort are more believable.

                                              jkh

                                                #53.2 - Tue Feb 7, 2012 8:59 AM EST
                                                Reply
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