Rick Santorum has vowed to help GOP contender Mitt Romney win the presidential election, according to his press secretary.
In an interview on CNN, Santorum press secretary Alice Stewart said Santorum offered Romney assurances when he called the presumptive GOP presidential nominee to tell him he was ending his campaign.
Stewart said Santorum assured Romney "that they'll have conversations in the next few days and weeks to come and he has vowed to do what ever it is that Gov. Romney needs to help him defeat Barack Obama in November."
Stewart told CNN that Santorum could act as a surrogate for Romney and speak out on the campaign trail on behalf of the former Massachusetts governor.
She also called on Republicans to "get together" to challenge President Obama and said that Santorum would use the support he has gained throughout the primary to "reach out" to fiscal, social and evangelical conservatives during the race for the White House.
"Mitt Romney has more of the popular vote. He certainly has more of the delegates ... he has earned the spot where he is and he has earned the support of the Republican party, and it's incumbent upon the rest of us to rally behind him," Stewart said.
Santorum announced Tuesday that he was suspending his campaign for the
presidency at an event in his home state of Pennsylvania.
"While this presidential race is over for me, and we will suspend our
campaign today, we are not done fighting," he said from Gettysburg, Pa.,
flanked by his family.
Santorum did not mention Romney in his comments.
Santorum was a voice for social conservatives during the campaign and could help bring them further into Romney's tent as he readies for the general election fight with Obama.
But Santorum also attacked Romney fiercely during the primary fight. Asked how Santorum would reconcile that criticism with support for the presumptive GOP nominee, Stewart told CNN, "the job now is to look forward."
"That's in the heat of the primary, and the job of all the candidates is to show the contrast where Rick differs from Gov. Romney and that's exactly what he was doing, but as we stand now the most important thing now is to put up the strongest Republican to beat the president," she said.
