By DAVID FIRESTONE
Mario Tama/Getty Images
Rick Santorum speaks during a campaign rally on March 5, 2012 in
Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.
CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio – Rick Santorum closed out his Super Tuesday
campaign by coming quite close to calling Mitt Romney a liar.
At a packed rally here in northeast Ohio Monday evening, Mr. Santorum
said Mr. Romney had endorsed the Massachusetts health care program as
a model for the nation as a whole, and was deliberately misleading the
public into thinking otherwise.
"Not only did Governor Romney advocate for a federal government
program that Barack Obama gladly accepted and did, but now we know
that Governor Romney for the course of this campaign has told the
country something that isn't true," Mr. Santorum said. "It's one thing
to have bad policy, it's another thing to mislead the American
public."
There is a desperation to Mr. Santorum's message. His social
conservatism has backfired; his rants about college, John F. Kennedy
and birth control may have cost him a victory in Michigan last week.
As he said on Monday, "it's gut-check time."
And on this issue, at least, there's not much doubt that Mr.
Santorum's gut is right. His campaign is seizing on an op-ed essay
written by Mr. Romney in 2009, at a time when President Obama was
seriously considering a "public option" that would make the government
an insurer. Mr. Romney argued that his Massachusetts plan, which
mandates coverage and imposes a tax penalty on those without it, would
be much better for the country.
"There's a better way," he wrote in USA Today. "And the lessons we
learned in Massachusetts could help Washington find it." He made
similar remarks in several television appearances at the time.
The architecture of his plan, of course, is the core of the one
Congress passed, but Mr. Romney continues to deny it. At a town hall
in Youngstown, Ohio, on Monday, he even claimed that he'd advocated
against adopting the Massachusetts plan at the federal level.
"When we put our plan in place in our state years ago, I was asked
very early on, is what you've done in Massachusetts something you
would have the entire government do, the federal government," he said
in Youngstown. "I said no. From the very beginning, no."
If Mr. Romney does well in today's primaries, it may be because
Republican voters have come to an accommodation with his contortions,
or at least consider them preferable to Mr. Santorum's unbending
right-wing extremism.
But whatever happens, Mr. Santorum's icy anger makes clear
that—contrary to the hopes of some in the Republican establishment— he
will not bow out of the race. He will continue pounding on lecterns,
railing to the remaining true believers that his rival can't be
believed about the insurance mandate and so much more. Later this
summer, the Obama campaign will pick up where he left off.
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
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