Mitt Romney's campaign turned up the heat on Rick Santorum, accusing the former senator as being part of "the liberal wing" of the Republican Party on fiscal issues and saying "he's wrong now to cast himself as the broad comprehensive conservative" as polls show the former Massachusetts governor losing ground in the race for the presidential nomination.
Romney surrogates attempted to highlight Santorum's voting record on earmarks and increasing the debt ceiling as polls show strong conservatives increasingly coalescing around the former senator's campaign.
In a poll released Tuesday by CBS and the New York Times, Santorum was the choice of 38 percent of conservatives - versus just 24 percent for Romney - and 36 percent of Tea Party voters backed Santorum, with 24 percent breaking for Romney. Santorum's support among white evangelicals has jumped to 39 percent, up from just 23 percent last month.
But Romney's backers argue that voters simply aren't aware of Santorum's voting history.
Animal-rights activists launched a protest questioning Mitt Romney's treatment of his dog outside the Westminster Dog Show Tuesday.
The event — organized by a group called Dogs Against Romney — is meant to highlight a widely circulated story in which Romney strapped his family dog, Seamus, in a kennel to the roof of his car during a 12-hour road trip to Canada despite the Irish setter suffering from diarrhea. The incident happened in 1983.
"The protest is sponsored by Dogs Against Romney — and will seek to focus more public attention on the fact that Romney forced his dog to ride for 12-hours on the roof of his car — and even coldly hosed the dog down with water after he became ill and frightened, soiling himself — before driving for hours more — all while Romney's luggage rode inside the car," the group said in a press release Monday.
Mitt Romney's campaign is up with its first ad in Michigan, using it to tout his ties Detroit.
The decision to go on the air indicates the campaign is concerned about Rick Santorum, who led in two polls of the state released on Monday. Michigan is considered a must-win for the Romney campaign.
Santorum has said he and his campaign will "plant our flag"
in Michigan and compete hard for delegates there. The former Pennsylvania senator is scheduled to be in the state on Thursday.
Romney's ad highlights his childhood in Michigan, where his father served as chairman of American Motors and later as governor.
"When I grew up in Michigan it was exciting to be here. I remember
going to the Detroit auto show with my dad. That was a big deal," Romney
says in the ad as images of Detroit in the 1960s and pictures of him as a
young man in Michigan are juxtaposed with video of the city today. "How
in the world did an industry and its leaders and its unions get in such
a fix that they lost jobs, that they lost their future? President Obama
did all these things the liberals have wanted to do for years, and the
fact that you've got millions of Americans out of work, home values
collapsing — people here in Detroit are distressed."
Romney then
stresses what the city and state mean to him. "I want to make Michigan
stronger and better," he says. "Michigan's been my home, and this is
personal."
A super-PAC supporting Romney has been on the air in the state for more than a week,
but this is the first time his campaign has run any ads there.
Romney faces a tricky balancing act on discussing the
state's auto industry after writing an op-ed in The New York Times in 2008 titled "Let Detroit
go bankrupt." Most conservatives opposed the bailout at the time, but in Michigan
even some conservatives now believe it saved the industry.
Earlier Tuesday, Romney authored another op-ed — this time published in a Detroit newspaper — seeking to explain his position on the industry and attack President Obama.
Rick Santorum's campaign, hoping to build on its growing momentum, is airing a new, upbeat ad in Michigan arguing that the former Pennsylvania senator is the best candidate to face President Obama in November.
"Who has the best chance to beat Obama? Rick Santorum," a cheerful voice-over in the ad says. "A full-spectrum conservative, Rick Santorum is rock solid on values issues. A favorite of the Tea Party for fighting corruption and taxpayer abuse; more foreign policy credentials than any candidate."
Newt Gingrich used Valentine's Day as an occasion to needle Mitt Romney, launching a new website Tuesday to argue the compatibility between the Republican front-runner and liberals.
"In honor of Valentine’s Day, Newt 2012 released a new website to remind voters that liberals finally have a Republican candidate they can call their own: Mitt Romney," Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond said in a statement. "Love is in the air. Liberals and Mitt Romney are a perfect match."
The site features animated graphics of prominent Democrats like President Obama, former Vice President Al Gore and billionaire fundraiser George Soros proclaiming their "love" for Romney in valentine-style statements.
Newt Gingrich on Monday night rebuffed calls to exit the presidential race, even as a new spate of polls found Rick Santorum — with whom the former House speaker had been jockeying for position as the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney — opening a lead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
Paired with Santorum's trio of wins in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado last week, along with a fresh call from the National Review, an influential conservative magazine, for Gingrich to clear out of the race, the Georgia Republican faced fresh questions about the viability of his candidacy. But Gingrich told attendees at a Tea Party rally in California that he had been counted out before.
The deep-pocketed, fiscally conservative Club for Growth has endorsed Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock's (R) bid to unseat longtime Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.), a major boon for the right-wing challenger.
"After 36 years in Washington, it's time to send Richard Lugar home," said Club for Growth President Chris Chocola. "Richard Lugar has served honorably, but he’s been part of the problem in Washington. He's voted for bigger government, more spending, and he even recently voted against a permanent ban on congressional pork. Richard Mourdock will vote to limit government, repeal ObamaCare, and will help bring back the jobs lost to Obama's economic policies."
The group has long attacked Lugar, ran ads against him last year and put out a poll showing him and Mourdock in a close primary race. But it had adopted a wait-and-see approach on an actual endorsement over concerns Mourdock would not have the money to run a real race against Lugar.
Lugar is a top target of Washington-based conservative groups; Mourdock was already backed by FreedomWorks and Citizens United. But the Club for Growth has the ability to spend much more money than those other groups. Chocola, a former Indiana congressman, might take a personal interest in the race.
Lugar recently come under fire for primarily living in Washington, D.C. and voting at the address of a home he sold more than three decades ago. Mourdock has also tried repeatedly to tie him to President Obama.
But the longtime senator has a big cash advantage in the race and boasts the backing of most Republicans in the state, including popular Gov. Mitch Daniels. The early-May primary will be hard-fought.
Democrats hope Mourdock can upset Lugar, giving their candidate, Rep. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), a better shot at the seat.
The National Republican Congressional Committee promoted three House candidates to "contender" status Tuesday, the third out of four steps in the "Young Guns" program that aims to provide a strategic and fundraising boost to formidable GOP candidates.
Republicans Ann Wagner in Missouri, Steve Daines in Montana and Luke Messner in Indiana have reached "contender" status. They will have to meet a new set of benchmarks to fully enter the "Young Guns" program.
The three additions represent the second round of "contender" candidates the NRCC has announced. Last week, the committee announced its first round of 11 candidates. That list included Randy Altschuler in New York, Richard Tisei in Massachusetts and Ricky Gill in California.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) doubts Newt Gingrich will stay in the presidential race all the way to the Republican National Convention, despite the former House Speaker's claims that he will do just that.
In an interview with The Atlantic magazine, Paul, who has campaigned for his father, Ron Paul's, presidential bid, said it's unlikely Gingrich will stay in until the convention.
"I doubt it. I think once he starts losing a bunch, he will drop out. Once he loses Florida, I don't know what states he's looking to," Paul said in the interview, published Tuesday. "He's not on the ballot in Virginia, and I don't think he's on the ballot in Illinois, either. There's no route to victory for him in the West. It's tough — my dad does real well out there, but so does [Mitt] Romney. There's not room for anybody else, probably, in a lot of those Western states."
Gingrich has repeatedly promised to stay in the presidential race until
the Republican Party's nomination convention in Tampa, Fla., which begins Aug. 27.
Recent polling of the GOP presidential field has found rising Republican support for Rick Santorum, with a number of polls showing him a close second or even ahead of the front-running Romney. Those same polls have found Paul and Gingrich with Republican support in the mid-teens. As a result, on Monday, the conservative National Review magazine suggested that Gingrich should drop out of the race and throw his support behind Santorum.
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