Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum isn’t impressed with Jon Huntsman’s endorsement of Mitt Romney.
“Moderates are backing moderates,” he said at a diner in Columbia, S.C., Monday, just hours before Huntsman was expected to withdraw from the GOP race and swing his backing to Romney. “That’s sort of the bottom line. No surprise there. Gov. Huntsman ran as a moderate, trying to compete with Gov. Romney for the establishment moderate vote.”
Former Massachusetts Gov. Romney had the advantage over former Utah Gov. Huntsman with support from the Republican establishment, Santorum said. “Gov. Huntsman wasn’t able to crack through that. So I’m not surprised by that all, and I anticipated that actually sooner than today,” Politico www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/01/santorum-on-huntsman-moderates-are-backing-moderates-110973.html quotes former Pennsylvania Sen. Santorum as saying.
Asked whether Huntsman’s move could push Rick Perry to exit the race, Santorum said, “I think it’s important that we eventually consolidate this race, to the extent that that can happen through the voting process. We’ve had two contests right now, and I’ve been the leading conservative in both those contests.”
Conservatives should unite behind him rather than Newt Gingrich, Santorum said. “Congressman Gingrich talks about how he’s the most electable. Then why did he finish behind me in the first two contests if he’s so electable?”
Santorum said he could beat Romney in South Carolina and Florida. “We ran better against President Obama than anybody in the field.”
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