Santorum says he hasn't talked to Romney or decided on endorsement

Rick Santorum told supporters Monday that he hadn't had a chance yet to speak with former rival Mitt Romney, seemingly putting on ice suggestions that the former Pennsylvania senator could campaign for the now-presumptive Republican nominee.

"I haven't had a chance yet to talk to Gov. Romney, but we'll be talking to both of them and we're going to go out and do what we believe is in the best interest of our country," Santorum said on a conference call with supporters reported by CBS News.

The one-time front-runner told those on the call it was up to them who to support in next week's Pennsylvania primary.

 "I haven't supported any candidate at this point," he said.

Instead of dipping his toe back into presidential politics, Santorum instead alluded — but did not expand — on plans to rally the conservative movement outside of his bid for the White House.

"I would just say this: The best thing that they can do is stay tuned, and we really are serious about making sure that the issues that we brought up during this campaign are continued going forward," Santorum said.

The former senator might still feel raw after a bruising Republican fight where infighting among the candidates made mounting an opposition to Mitt Romney's campaign increasingly difficult. Santorum admitted for the first time Monday that he had — unsuccessfully — tried to convince other candidates to exit the race.

"We sought to get a coalition of the rest of the conservatives in the race to join in, the other candidates who were still in the race; we solicited them to see whether they might be willing to join our team and help us be successful in a coalition of conservatives," Santorum said.

Asked about his pledged delegates at the Republican convention, Santorum said that he wanted to make sure that "our delegates get a chance to go to the convention and have a say."

Santorum also insisted that his financial struggles were only a "very, very small piece of the story" in his decision to exit the race last week.

"I know there's been a lot of articles written that somehow we dropped out because we ran out of money. That just is a little, very, very small piece of the story," Santorum said. "The bottom line is we wanted to take this race as far as we could to the point where we felt that we could be successful."

But the campaign did press those on the line — and who had signed up on Santorum's website — to consider donating to retire the former senator's debt, arguing it would help him pursue a conservative agenda more aggressively.

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