Romney surrogates downplay Santorum endorsement

Mitt Romney dispatched top surrogates Friday to hit Rick Santorum on his record in the Senate, and to downplay the news that Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine (R), a former Romney backer, had switched his allegiance.

"The most important thing you can get from an endorser is their organization," former Gov. John Sununu (R-N.H.) said. "As I understand it, attorneys general don't have much of an organization."

Romney's campaign had already scheduled Sununu and Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) to attack Santorum before reports emerged that DeWine would switch teams. Reporters were told to join a 2 p.m. conference call dubbed “Rick Santorum Is Wrong For Ohio."

But after Santorum's campaign announced it would be making a "major campaign announcement" at 2 p.m., Romney's campaign rescheduled their call for an hour later.

Sununu brought up DeWine twice, tying him to a plan that he and Santorum supported in 2002 to give former felons the ability to vote after their sentence, parole and probation have expired. Sununu said DeWine was upset that a super-PAC supporting Romney had brought up the issue in an ad despite DeWine's backing of Romney, and had decided to bail on the campaign.

Turner and Sununu painted Santorum as a nice person who had gotten lost in the ways of a broken political system and then fled into consulting.

"Frankly, when he got to Washington, he got very Washingtonian," Sununu said. "He fell in love with earmarks."

Santorum poses the biggest threat to Romney in Michigan, a must-win state for Romney that will vote on Feb. 28. The former Pennsylvania senator defeated Romney in three states already in February, calling into question Romney's argument that he's the most electable candidate in the GOP field.

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