Ed Rendell: Santorum 'enormously effective' at getting earmarks as Pa. senator

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum was "enormously effective" at getting earmarks for transportation projects in his home state when he was in Congress, former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) said in a recent interview.

Rendell, whose term as governor of Pennsylvania overlapped Santorum's time as senator from the state, was assessing Santorum's showing in the Iowa caucuses with the Scranton Times-Tribune.

He told the newspaper that Santorum got the importance of transportation as a senator.

"He understood that those type of earmarks translated into jobs and investment," Rendell said in the interview. "So I think there's a practical side to Rick that didn't come through in Pennsylvania quite enough. But I think where he will eventually be tripped up are some of the things that he said that make you shake your head."

Santorum's come-from-behind performance in the first presidential contest pits him against GOP front-runner Mitt Romney. And targeting transportation spending for things like Amtrak are a standard part of Romney's stump speech.

In an op-ed published last fall in a newspaper of the next state to vote, Romney called Amtrak "a classic example" of "functions that the private sector can perform better than the public sector."

Romney defeated Santorum by just eight votes in Iowa, though polls show him holding a wide lead in New Hampshire.

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