Daily Mail
Tough at the top: Santorum struggles to defend Washington record as he becomes main target in Arizona debate
By Toby Harnden
It was a tough night for Rick Santorum here in Mesa, Arizona as he found himself under attack from Mitt Romney and Ron Paul and repeatedly got bogged down in offering tortuous explanations for his votes and actions in Congress.
Romney, knowing he has to win Michigan on Tuesday (he's going to be there every day until Tuesday's primary in the state of his birth and boyhood), had prepared meticulously and had a game plan: paint Santorum as a professional politician and Washington insider.
It worked, largely because Santorum walked into the trap. Again and again, Santorum sought to explain his way out of charges made against him rather than shrugging them off and attacking Romney on his record as Massachusetts governor and liberal past.
Once again, Romney showed himself to be polished and the master of his brief. The Romney campaign has a sophisticated "oppo" (opposition research) operation and it was as if Romney had a 1MB thumb drive plugged into the side of his head, accessing data about Santorum's record that had him squirming.
By contrast, Santorum did not have facts at his fingertips to attack Romney. After defending himself at length on earmarks, Santorum ended rather lamely by telling Romney: "So I suspect you would have supported earmarks if you were in the United States Senate."
Romney offered pithy soundbites: "While I was fighting to save the Olympics, you were fighting to save the Bridge to Nowhere"
In response, Santorum all to often floundered around in the weeds: "What, what happened in the earmark process, what happens in the earmark process was that members of Congress would, would, would ask formally, publicly request these things, put them on paper, and have, and have them, have them allocated, and have them voted on in committee, have them voted on on the floor of the Senate."
After another rambling statement from Santorum about earmarks, Romney responded: "I didn't follow all of that, but I can tell you this. I would put a ban on earmarks. I think it opens the door to excessive spending, spending on projects that don't need to be done."
Rather than get taken to task for Romneycare in Massachusetts - an obvious vulnerability - Romney launched an attack against Santorum.
"The reason we have Obamacare is because the senator you supported over Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, Arlen Specter, the pro-choice senator of Pennsylvania that you supported and endorsed in a race over Pat Toomey, he voted for Obamacare.
"If you had not supported him, if we had said no to Arlen Specter, we would not have Obamacare. So don't look at me, take a look in the mirror."
Santorum's support for Specter, a hate figure among the GOP grassroots, is something he needs to answer quickly and move on. Instead, he sought to justify himself.
Romney's argument was in some respects preposterous. He was taking Santorum to task for supporting a pro-choice Senator from his home state in 2004 - a time when Romney was personally pro-choice.
Santorum did not point this out, choosing instead to give a convoluted explanation for why Specter's Supreme Court nomination votes made it right to have backed him in 2004.
A few minutes later, Santorum's press secretary Matt Beynon sent out a tweet stating exactly what his boss should have said: "Rick Santorum may have supported Arlen Specter in 2004, but Mitt Romney was pro-choice in 2004."
Romney was ably assisted by Ron Paul, who delivered one of the lines of the night when asked: "You have a new television ad that labels him [Santourm] a fake. Why?" To which Paul responded, chuckling: "Because he's a fake."
Team Santorum was so frustrated by this that they suggested afterwards that Romney had "trained" Paul after cutting a deal to "join forces", perhaps even after an agreement that Paul could be his vice-presidential running mate.
The crowd was also very much behind Romney - a sign of good campaign organisation in ensuring supporters got tickets for the event and cheered and booed in all the right places. Newt Gingrich performed well and was best at articulating conservative principles - but he has sunk so fast in the polls that anything he achieved tonight could only help Romney.
Afterwards, Santorum's top strategist John Brabender presented the former US Senator for Pennsylvania's somewhat naive performance as a hallmark of his authenticity.
"Romney is trained as an attack dog," he said. We're talking about somebody who has run more negative ads against Republicans than Barack Obama has ever run against Republicans.
"Romney is tested and I actually say it's Pavlovian - he hears a certain word here's what he responds to. The Senator answers the question that is asked. He doesnt sit there and say how can I spin this to my benefit . There's an authenticity to that, being honest with the American people."
He added: "People see a genuine nature to that rather than feel like saying 'Oh my God, he could have spun that differently, he could have turned that right back on Romney and got a pivot."
Rightly or wrongly, campaign success is often built on smooth debate performances in which pre-prepared lines are delivered expertly and questions are turned upside down or ignored for a pivot to what the candidate wants to talk about.
The Romney campaign seemed very pleased with the way the night had gone. Asked about Santorum, Romney's chief strategist Stuart Stevens said: "He just seemed next to Governor Romney to be someone who was not ready to be President of the United States, who didn't have the depth of knowledge and judgment on these issues and the leadership ability, who was talking about a lot of bills he voted for and trying to justify that."
Of course, much of that is obvious spin - Romney should not be in the position of having to spend the next five days in Michigan to try to scrape a victory there. At this stage he should not be nine points nationally behind a Senator who lost his home state by 18 points in 2006.
But this debate may well have allowed Romney to turn things around. Santorum's surge had been slowing down in Michigan anyway and he failed to assert himself in Mesa. The impression left for many voters will have been that of a long-time Washington politician who has cut deals, made compromises and worked to get a slice of the federal pie for his state - all thinsg that are anathema to the bulk of Republican primary voters.
If Romney scores a double win on Tuesday, this 20th GOP debate could well be looked back on as a turning point.
http://harndenblog.dailymail.co.uk/2012/02/tough-at-the-top-rick-santorum-struggles-to-defend-his-washington-record-as-he-finds-himself-the-mai.html
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