Super Tuesday challenge for Santorum in Ohio

CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio (AP) — Rick Santorum is facing a crucial test in Ohio, where he's drawing upon his working-class background and underdog image to try to stop Mitt Romney from scoring a pivotal victory in Super Tuesday's premier contest.

An unapologetic social conservative, Santorum has cast the race in Biblical terms: He's David vs. Romney's Goliath. Even that "is probably a little bit of an understatement," Santorum said Monday.

The former senator from neighboring Pennsylvania has a shell of a campaign in Ohio, with no state headquarters and a barebones staff. In Romney he faces a challenger who enjoys a massive cash advantage and a political machine that's produced high-stakes victories in other states when his front-runner status was in doubt.

Santorum expects to be competitive in several states Tuesday — Tennessee, Oklahoma and Georgia among them. But Ohio voters, perhaps more than any others among the 10 states voting on this Super Tuesday, may shape the fate of his campaign.

A Santorum victory could reshuffle the Republican contest, sending a powerful message that Romney's grasp on his party's nomination is by no means assured. A loss in Ohio, where Santorum has devoted much of his time and resources, may have lasting consequences.

Santorum will spend Tuesday night watching returns in Steubenville, an eastern Ohio town just a 90-minute drive from his own Pennsylvania hometown.

On Monday, Santorum largely set his aggressive social agenda aside and focused on his plans to revitalize the nation's manufacturing sector, while reminding voters across Ohio about his family's blue-collar roots. But as public polls showed a tightening race, Santorum's team also sought to lower expectations.

"This fight will continue and it's going to go on for a long time after this," a Santorum supporter, state Attorney General Mike DeWine, said on the eve of the election. "We're going to fight state to state. I think Rick is going to win ... but it's going to be a close race."

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Santorum robocall urges Democrats to vote in GOP primary

As the GOP primary race comes down to the wire in Michigan, Rick Santorum’s campaign has a last trick up its sleeve.

The campaign has launched telephone robocalls throughout the state slamming rival Mitt Romney for opposing the auto industry bailout in late 2008 and early 2009, and urging Democrats to show up for Tuesday’s Republican primary and cast ballots for Santorum. 

“Michigan Democrats can vote in the Republican primary on Tuesday. Why is it so important?” the voice on the call says. “Romney supported the bailouts for his Wall Street, billionaire buddies, but opposed the auto bailouts. That was a slap in the face to every Michigan worker, and we’re not going to let Romney get away with it.”

The call urges listeners to “send a loud message” to Romney by voting for Santorum, even though Santorum, too, opposed the auto industry bailout. It ends with the line: “This call is supported by hard-working Democratic men and women and paid for by Rick Santorum for president.”

Ryan Williams, a Romney spokesman, issued a statement late on Monday that said: “It is outrageous that Rick Santorum is inviting Democrats into the Republican primary to vote against Mitt Romney. Rick Santorum has moved beyond just ‘taking one for the team.’ He is now willing to wear the other team’s jersey if he thinks it will get him more votes. We believe that Republicans will decide who wins Michigan, and we are confident that will be Mitt Romney.”

A Santorum spokesman defended the attempt to turn out Reagan Democrats for Santorum, despite the fact that Santorum’s position on the bailout was the same as Romney’s.

“Any conservative message that reaches out, when it's about creating jobs for all Americans is going to be attractive to Reagan Democrats,” Santorum spokesman Hogan Gidley said in an interview, explaining the raionale for the robocalls. “We’re going to need those Reagan Democrats to win this election.”

Asked about the contradiction in Santorum's robocalls criticizing a position Santorum himself took, Gidley said the content of the robocalls is justified because Romney supported the financial industry bailout while opposing the auto bailout, while Santorum opposed both, suggesting the issue is consistency.

“Governor Romney opposed the auto bailout for the workers of Detroit, but was fine pushing the bailout for his friends on Wall Street,” Gidley said. “Either be all for the bailout or all against the bailout, but don’t pick winners and losers.”

However, the robocalls do not mention Santorum's opposition to the auto bailout, or the consistency issue, and in fact leave listeners with the impression that Santorum supported the auto bailout.

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Obama chides Santorum on ‘snob’ charge

President Barack Obama delivers remarks at the National Governors Association in the State Dining Room of the White …The White House on Monday rolled out a "no-drama" response to Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum's charge that Barack Obama is a "snob" intent on pushing "everybody in America" to go to college.

By the superheated standards of recent election-year Republican attacks on the president — they've called him a socialist waging war on organized religion and offering nothing but weak-kneed appeasement to all of America's enemies (apparently Osama bin Laden can rest in appease) — Santorum's jibe was pretty mild, so maybe that's why Obama's response was more gentle rebuke than releasing the dogs-with-bees-in-their-mouths-and-when-they-bark-they-shoot-bees-at-you.

The criticism drew a response from Obama himself, who offered a thinly veiled rejoinder during a speech to the National Governors Association.

"The jobs of the future are increasingly going to those with more than a high school degree," he said. "And I have to make a point here:  When I speak about higher education we're not just talking about a four-year degree.  We're talking about somebody going to a community college and getting trained for that manufacturing job that now is requiring somebody walking through the door, handling a million-dollar piece of equipment. And they can't go in there unless they've got some basic training beyond what they received in high school."

"We all want Americans getting those jobs of the future.  So we're going to have to make sure that they're getting the education that they need," said the president.

Santorum's campaign press secretary, Alice Stewart, told MSNBC that Obama had made a "change in tone" and "clarified" his stance in response to the Republicans' attacks.

But Obama's remarks tracked with his first-ever speech to a joint session of Congress in February 2009, when he declared: "I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training."

"This can be community college or a four-year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship.  But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma.  And dropping out of high school is no longer an option."

Santorum had charged, in remarks shown on NBC's "Meet The Press" on Sunday,  that "President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob!"

"There are good, decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to the test that aren't taught by some liberal college professor, trying to indoctrinate them. Oh I understand why he wants to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image," Santorum said.

Asked about Santorum's comments, White House spokesman Jay Carney also took a low-key approach, telling reporters: "I don't think any parent in America who has a child would think it snobbery to hope for that child the best possible education in the future, and that includes college. "

"As you know, the president has always made clear that he believes higher education is important for everyone, and that includes if not a four-year degree -- bachelor's of arts degree -- then a two-year degree from a community college or vocational training through a community college," Carney said.

"So it is, to use a phrase that we've applied elsewhere, an all-of-the-above approach when it comes to higher education," he said.

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Santorum Takes Heavy Fire in Arizona Republican Debate

Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum.

Rivals heaped criticism on surprise front-runner Rick Santorum in a debate among U.S. Republican presidential candidates on Wednesday, hoping to stall his surge at a pivotal period in the 2012 campaign.

Mitt Romney, scrambling to fight back against a grave threat from Santorum, went after his chief rival early and often.

He tried to raise enough doubts about Santorum to make up for a deficit in the polls, with Michigan and Arizona to vote on Feb. 28 and set the table for the crucial March 6 "Super Tuesday."

Former Massachusetts Governor Romney repeatedly questioned Santorum's fiscal and social conservative credentials and criticized his time in the U.S. Congress when he was a backer of government spending projects deemed wasteful by critics.

"Don't look at me, take a look in the mirror," Romney told him at one tense juncture when Santorum accused Romney of backing moderate policies in Massachusetts.

Romney put the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania on the defensive for supporting a much-derided $400 million "bridge to nowhere" project in Alaska that was eventually abandoned.

Tempers flared between Santorum and Romney frequently and at one point the two candidates talked over each other, refusing to cede the floor. At times the crowd booed. Debate moderator John King of CNN frequently let the two candidates battle it out.

"When I was fighting for the Olympics, you were fighting for the 'bridge to nowhere,'" Romney told Santorum.

"You don't know what you're talking about," Santorum snapped back. He insisted that earmarks are subjected to public scrutiny and can be useful, although there has been a move among congressional Republicans to ban them.

Santorum needs to build on his momentum going into the Arizona and Michigan primaries on Feb. 28 and pave the way for Super Tuesday. The Republican candidates are vying for their party's nomination to challenge Democratic President Barack Obama in a Nov. 6 general election.

Santorum and Romney are in a close race in Michigan, according to opinion polls, with most recent surveys showing the two divided by 4 percentage points or fewer. A victory in Michigan is critical for Romney as he needs to prove he can win in the state where he was born.

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