Santorum Proving More Effective Fighter than Romney

Mitt Romney's campaign punching has opened him up to even better Santorum counter punches.

Donald Trump, a Romney surrogate who endorsed Governor Romney last week, today asked why someone who lost by 19 points in his last election would then decide to run for president. This referred to Senator Rick Santorum's loss in 2006.

The Santorum original counterpunch:

"'I was in a 71 percent Democratic district,' Santorum continued. 'I had a 90 percent conservative voting record. It was a hard thing to do. My district was more Democrat than the state of Massachusetts, and I stood up and fought for the conservative principles. I didn't do what Gov. Romney did in 1994 [when Romney ran for Senate against Sen. Edward Kennedy]. I was running the same year he ran, in 1994. I ran in the tough state of Pennsylvania against an incumbent. Gov. Romney lost by almost 20 points. Why? Because at the end of that campaign, he wouldn't stand up for conservative principles, he ran from Ronald Reagan, and he said he was going to be to the left of Ted Kennedy on gay rights, on abortion and a whole host of other issues. We want someone when the time gets tough -- and it will in this election -- we want someone who's going to stand up and fight for the conservative principles, not bail out and not run to the left of Ted Kennedy.'"

Senator Santorum added to that critique noting that when he ran in the tough 2006 election on his conservative principles, Governor Romney decided not to run on his conservative principles in Massachusetts for a second term as governor.

As to who is the Washington insider:

"The 2012 hopeful also said Romney was wrong to call himself 'Mr. Outsider' when he had supported the government takeover of healthcare and the Wall Street bailout. 'Mr. Private Sector was Mr. Big Government when he was out there running from the private sector,' he said."

This is a point Bill Kristol noted about Romney surrogate, Tim Pawlenty, Monday:

"Here's Tim Pawlenty today, as a Mitt Romney campaign surrogate, on a conference call criticizing former senator Rick Santorum for . . . having voted to raise the debt ceiling: 'He voted numerous times to raise the debt ceiling and here we as a nation facing fiscal crisis, I mean literally on the edge of the fiscal abyss. We need a next president who’s been strong and proven in fiscal and spending matters, and we had Rick Santorum voting numerous times to raise the debt ceiling.' (The quotation is from the Romney press shop’s transcript.)

"Here's a question: Did either Tim Pawlenty or Mitt Romney speak out at the time against any of the debt ceiling hikes Rick Santorum voted for as a member of Congress?"