Aides to Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum aren’t too happy about the way he is being skewered for his comment in a 2008 speech that "Satan is attacking the great institutions of America."
One staffer told
The Washington Examiner, "I don't know what's news-making that Rick Santorum believes in right and wrong, good and evil, God and the devil. I really don't know how that's out of the mainstream."
Santorum's aides say it’s unfair that reporters are grilling Santorum about his faith but not tossing similar questions at Mitt Romney.
"Why is Mormonism off limits?" one adviser told the Examiner.
"I'm not saying it's a seminal issue in the campaign, but we're having to spend days answering questions about Rick's faith, which he has been open about. Romney will turn on a dime when you talk about religion . . . When Romney says, 'I want to focus on the economy,' they say, OK, we'll focus on the economy."
After those comments were published, the Santorum aide called the Examiner back to say that his "off-limits" comment wasn’t directed specifically at Mormonism but rather at the fact that Santorum alone faces questions about religion.
The aide asked why reporters aren’t scrutinizing the religious views of Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul, in addition to Romney, to the same extent as Santorum’s are.
The simple answer may be that the other three haven’t raised religion as an issue like Santorum has.
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