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Subscribe to RSSThe Daily Rundown's Chuck Todd talks about Rick Santorum's comments to a crowd of supporters, in which he said President Barack Obama is better than Mitt Romney.
SAN ANTONIO, TX -- Rick Santorum today suggested it would be better to stick with President Obama over a candidate that might be "the Etch A Sketch candidate of the future” -- a shot at chief rival Mitt Romney.
"You win by giving people the opportunity to see a different vision for our country, not someone who’s just going to be a little different than the person in there," said Santorum. "If you’re going to be a little different, we might as well stay with what we have instead of taking a risk with what may be the Etch A Sketch candidate of the future.”
For the second day in a row, the former Pennsylvania senator brought an Etch A Sketch on the trail as a prop to remind voters of Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom's response to a question about whether Santorum is pushing Romney too far right to win over moderate voters in a general election. "Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes," Fehrnstrom said Wednesday on CNN. "It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again."
The comment gave plenty of ammunition to Santorum and Newt Gingrich, both of whom have made the well-known children's toy a staple of their stump speeches.
Speaking at the USAA headquarters here, Santorum showed optimism about his chances in the delegate rich state of Texas. He told the crowd the primary would not be over by the time the Lone Star State votes on May 29.
"It's the second-biggest delegate prize, and you're going to have an important role. This race will not be over when Texas is coming around," he said.
Santorum's viability hinges on picking up a majority of the 155 delegates that will be up for grabs here. When asked about his path to the nomination, Texas plays a key role.
Still, the GOP hopeful avoided calling on Newt Gingrich to leave the race, though senior campaign advisers have said the former House speaker remaining in the race is cutting into their vote totals and that they would like to receive the former House speaker's support.
Santorum said his campaign has been in contact with both the Gingrich and Romney campaigns, though he declined to give specifics of the conversations.
"I’m worried about being a candidate. I’m not worried about anything else right now,” Santorum told reporters who asked about the nature of the conversations.
Accompanying Santorum on the trail today was billionaire-backer Foster Freiss, who is a chief contributor to the pro-Santorum Super PAC Red, White and Blue Fund. They will attend a fundraiser in Dallas on Thursday afternoon.
*** UPDATE *** The Romney camp responds with this statement from the former Massachusetts governor: “I am in this race to defeat Barack Obama and restore America’s promise. I was disappointed to hear that Rick Santorum would rather have Barack Obama as president than a Republican. This election is more important than any one person. It is about the future of America. Any of the Republicans running would be better than President Obama and his record of failure.”
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The guy is an idiot, talk about dragging down a party.
He is a party pooper, plus he is full of @!$%# so......................................
Rick Santorum just showed his true colors... For he is not a TRUE Republican!!!!!!
Enough said!!!!
Santorum is worried that Romney plans to impose Mormon law on all Americans. He's different. He's not one of us. He's one of them.
We're all Americans aren't we???
Not to Santorum.
I think that this scorched earth strategy for Santorum signals the end of his political career.
One can only hope...
santorum is voting for President Obama? If we use the test that you vote for the incumbent if you are better off today than four years ago then all the candidates should be voting for President Obama. It should be a landslide.
You live in a fantasyland then. FIVE BUCKS A GALLON for GASOLINE is NOT better off.
I have never understood why people thought a President was responsible for how "well off" they are. I have never even considered that in choosing who to vote for.
the average gas price in the nation is $3.88. I'm not saying that's not expensive, but this is a stupid tactic that I hate, misrepresenting statistics to make what you think is a point.
Weren't people predicting $6 a gallon gas last summer too?
I finally figured it out!
The GOP is so in love with President Obama, but must appear to oppose
him, that they are insuring his re-election through their absurd energy, healthcare, economic, and tax policies in combination with their even more ridiculous social engineering policies. How better to insure President Obamas' re-election than to drive members from their own party by talking and acting like they're stupid! They will make the last Presidential elections minority loose most of its' support from within their own party.
By alienating EVERYONE the GOP gets my vote for being a real crafty bunch! Thanks GOP.... keep up the good
work!
So far, in all of the Republican primary's, there have been a total of 10,078,519 votes cast in 29 primaries. With twenty-one states to go republicans have failed to reach one tenth of the 131,032,779 total votes cast in the 2008 Presidential election. If the low turnouts are a sign of the strength of the arguments of the GOP; CONGRATULATIONS! President Obama for being elected to your second term. Grand Old Party... The handwriting is on the wall... or at the ballot booth!
Contrast republican primary voting with the 35,029,294 total votes cast in the 2008 democratic primary and you can see that with twenty-one states to go they will have to cast 24,950,775 votes to equal the number cast in the 2008 democratic primary. There is clearly little interest in who will eventually oppose President Obama in the general election. Good luck GOP; seems like your only goal is in picking the eventual loser!
Lenard you must be wealthy like Romney if you like obama you must like high gas prices and high health insurance costs the hope and change we where promised has little hope that the change will improve
lets see this is the 2nd worse recovery out of all the recessions the country has ever had which is about 10 -11 i'm told and it's not the current presidents fault he tells use and we want to reelect someone who has blamed someone else for 3+ years for the recovery ya lets reelect that guy i think not
plstop
Since this is the worst recession, then the second worse recovery shows good progress.
Also you show your ignorance when you keep trying to blame gas prices on the president. The highest national average gas prices in history were under the Bush administration and they were not Bushs fault either. The president has no control over gs prices.
And don't try to claim that gas prices are high because the Keystone pipeline was blocked by Obama. Gas prices in the central states are low because the pipeline does not exist. If the pipeline is built, gas prices in the central states will go up and gas prices in the other states will not fall much if any.
Willard Mitt Romney was born Willardo Macho Romeo by a Mexican mother and a French father in Mexico in 1947. His Father's distant cousin (George Romney) took him in when he was a teenager, changed his name to Willard Mitt Romney (the Willard was an homage to his friend Willard "Bill" Marriott the CEO of Marriott Intl.) And obtained a fake Michigan Birth certificate for the young boy in a plan to one day install him as President of the United States so as to destroy the country to complete Montezuma's revenge
That is hilarious. Whether you are an Obama fan or Romney hater. I appreciate a clever, and inventive type product, or story. You made me laugh and that is a good thing.
at least romney will not with hold off showing his birth certificate for 6 month's ???
tell me if you have a legal birth certificate or a drives license why do you hold off on showing it ??? when you get pulled over by a police officer its not like you can say sorry it's going to take me a couple days to reveal that i have a legal drivers license not that I'm a birther but if you have a legal Identification why would you hold off showing it ?? , kind of hard to resepect someone who plays games like that
Romney has yet to release his birth certificate. I demand that he do so now, and turn it over to experts in document forensics. His Michigan birth certificate is fake.
Obama did release his birth certificate, certified by the state of Hawaii. It's just that a bunch of nuts didn't want to believe it and kept demanding the official long form certificate.
I'm not saying that Mitt Romney is not a natural born American citizen. I just think it's interesting that Mitt hasn't answered all the questions that are being raised. That's all.
Santorum just lost any last chance he may of had.
after that dog and pony show yesterday, it was so obvios what a fibber berry is. I thought he lost his last support, but he has 6 peolpe left..those on this post
Then why is he consistently ahead in the polls?
actually ramussen has romney ahead by 5 santorem by 2....at this point carter was ahead of reagan 62-38
Of course Rasmussen does. That's their job!
actually the were exact in the last two elections..
Conservatives like FREEDOM until somebody exercises their FREEDOM by speaking their mind. Absolutely hilarious.
The biggest loser in all this....Santorum's family. They can't erase him and have no choice but be his captive audience to constant dribble nonsense. How sad.
I wouldn't compare santorems family to a bunch of extreme leftists...you all look like the adams family
Santorum just ended his campaign with that comment.
Wrong! The Crazy Vote doesn't care.
t395: I actually was leaning toward voting for him in the primary but he keeps shooting himself in the foot. I'm gone.
What really gets my goat is the press coverage. Romney did not make the etch-a-sketch comment, and the proper thing for him to do would be to have immediately called a news conference and say this individual no longer works for me and was not authorized to speak for me. It wouldn't have mattered to the FAR left but the main stream media would have to put it on the air.
Santorum may be the first Republican to tell the truth since Mitch McConnell said his primary job was to defeat Obama.
All these guys have done - McConnell, Ryan, Boehner, Gingrich, Perry, Cain, Santorum, Paul, Ronmey, Bachmann - is show why Obama should be re-elected.
Hey Rick: your words:
All these guys have done - McConnell, Ryan, Boehner, Gingrich, Perry, Cain, Santorum, Paul, Ronmey, Bachmann - is show why Obama should be re-elected.
The same reason these people have shown why he shouldn't be: Reid, Pelosi, Biden - I have more but you get the gist.
Go ahead, "imnotlost", give some precise examples. Don't just do the typical right-wing hit and run with unsubstantiated claims. (Do you have permission to use the NBC logo?)
I wonder if Feisty and a few others have permission to use FOX's logo.
I don't have time to list all the Democrats that caucus with the President, do it yourself.
What a baby! Yes, it was a stupid remark to be made, but get real. Obama has been doing the do over with Etch A Sketch for 4 years. Case in point. The oil pipe line.
I guess the better choice was Rommey after all. The Reps dodged a bullet with this cry baby.
He's right - given the GOP candidates it IS better to just stick with Obama. I'd prefer we had some really stellar candidates to choose from in both camps, but that hasn't happened for decades and even if we had great candidates today it would still take several presidencies to dig America out of the quagmire of sh!t it's in.
Well, if the republican voters didn't realize that Santorum was a mental midget...they do now !!!!
did you see that left wing mooch at the romney rally the other day? she said I wantt free abortion pills!!!! Romney said " then vote for berry" she shut right up, it was funny
You do realize that Romney's health care plan in Massachusetts covered abortion whereas Obama's does not?
dont be a fool, berry just added 1.00 tax on every ( something, cant remember) to cover abortions...actually sibelius did
Well I have to admit, the man said something I can agree with.
We are stuck with obama for 4 more years. My party wants it that way. If we were to beat him we needed to put a up winner against him.
What my party has done is put up people that play with toys, and talk about pornography.
Hey guys: What about drug dealers on our corners? What about our borders? What about our wars?
It looks like we will end up with a candidate that's a cult member with ties to both sides of the border. A border we want closed.
I was against obama, because of his lack of experience. Will he has some now.
It reminds me of etch-a-sketch bushman mr grover, the gop, & the rushbo sold to us. The guy never told us about the contrived ken lay rolling blackouts, jets crashing into the wtc, invading iraq, & the crash of 2007. No. The bushman told us he would control co2 like al gore.
Santorum and "The Fox and the Grapes".
No Rick,. Mickey Mouse would be better than Obama.
But not YOU.
Santorum just ended his campaign with that comment is true. After all of his lies and lack of leadership why would anyone vote for Obama again!
Perhaps the fact that they are voting for him again suggests that they see it differently than you.
Isn't democracy great?
Republican/Democrat - doesn't matter. They are all out of touch with the struggling common population.
I agree with Santorum, If I have to choose between Romney
and Obama I will pick neither.
They are both bad leaders with personal interests above
public interests and values that do not represent me as an American.
I Do think Santorum could be a good president regardless of
what the liberals may say.
Santorum's campaign is now officially over. Anyone but Obama!