Romney Talks Economy as Santorum Touts Christian Values
Feb. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney focused on the economy and government spending in Ohio yesterday, while rival Rick Santorum was in Michigan exhorting voters to back him as a way of promoting their own values with primaries approaching in both states.
In a speech at Meridian Bioscience Inc. in Cincinnati before a private fundraiser, Romney touted his ability to curb spending and lead the economy down a different path than President Barack Obama. He criticized Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, for voting to raise the debt ceiling five times without offsetting spending cuts.
"When Republicans go to Washington and spend like Democrats, you're going to have a lot of spending, and that's what we've seen over the last several years," Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, said in the speech. "It's time, in my view, for us to do something that we talk about but rarely have done, and that is cut the amount of federal spending."
While Ohio is what Santorum has called "the key prize" on March 6, Super Tuesday, Michigan and Arizona vote a week earlier, on Feb. 28. Santorum, who has won primary-season contests in four states, is seeking a Michigan victory over Romney, who is a native of the state, by saying he would provide the sharper contrast to Obama in the general election.
Out-of-Wedlock Births
After a morning stop in Ohio, Santorum spent much of yesterday in the western part of Michigan emphasizing such social issues as out-of-wedlock births.
"We really wanted to come out here in Western Michigan and plant the flag here," he told a crowd of more than 500 students and others in a hall at Hope College, a Christian school in Holland. "This is the conservative part of Michigan, and the conservative epicenter for our county."
Santorum's campaign hastily arranged three stops in the area as part of a strategy to turn out voters there for who make a priority of their faith and opposition to abortion rights and gay marriage.
"The values of western Michigan are exactly the values that we are trying to restore," Santorum said in a speech that decried the proliferation of out-of-wedlock births and absentee fathers in the U.S., advocated limited government and strict adherence to the Constitution, and assailed Obama's agenda, particularly the health-care overhaul enacted in 2010.
'Clear Contrast'
Later, at the Kent County Republican Party's Lincoln Day dinner in Grand Rapids, Santorum argued he is the candidate that gives the party the best chance against Obama because of his consistent opposition to the health-care measure and to legislation designed to curb carbon emissions.
"I present a clear contrast with Barack Obama on all these big-government, top-down versus bottom-up" issues, Santorum said. "You have an opportunity here in conservative western Michigan to talk and to speak loudly about what this country means."
While he never named Romney, Santorum was presenting implicit differences with the former Massachusetts governor, who signed a state law that required that everyone purchase medical insurance, and who wrote in his 2010 book "No Apologies," that he believes "human activity is a contributing factor" in global warming.
Climate Change
Santorum recently has begun telling voters that while he believes climate change is occurring, it isn't clear whether human beings are the cause.
He told Kent County Republicans he "never bought into the, quote, 'climate science' of global warming that we later found out was not climate science, it was political science."
Romney said in Cincinnati that he would be the better alternative to Obama.
"One of the reasons I'm running is to replace Barack Obama with someone who understands how the private sector works," Romney said.
U.S. Senator Rob Portman, Romney's highest-profile Republican supporter in Ohio, said in his introduction of the two-time presidential candidate in Cincinnati that Republicans need to "come together around someone who can defeat President Obama in November and begin the task of repairing our broken economy."
Gay Marriage
Asked after the speech how important such social issues as gay marriage and abortion rights will be in the Michigan and Ohio primaries, Portman said the Republican candidates tend to have the same positions and that the economy will be paramount.
Portman also said it's premature to talk about what will happen if Romney doesn't win in Michigan.
"The process is just beginning in terms of the number of delegates," Portman told reporters. "I've always believed this is going to go into the spring, I think it will. But I think there's no question that he has the message and he has the organization and the staying power to be our nominee."
Santorum also highlighted his opposition to abortion rights and other social issues during campaign stops late last week -- including saying during a speech to anti-government spending Tea Party activists in Columbus Feb. 18 that Obama has a "phony theology" and "not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology."
Appearing on the CBS "Face the Nation" program Feb. 19, Santorum said he wasn't questioning Obama's Christian faith. He said Obama is beholden to "radical environmentalists" and has "a world view that elevates the earth above man."
"This idea that man is here to serve the earth, as opposed to husband its resources and being good stewards of the earth, and I think that is a phony ideal," Santorum said.
Santorum heads today to Arizona, which also holds its primary Feb. 28, for two days of events there and a Feb. 22 debate in Mesa.
To contact the reporters on this story: Mark Niquette in Cincinnati, Ohio at mniquette@bloomberg.net Julie Hirschfeld Davis in Holland, Michigan at Or jdavis159@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jeanne Cummings at jcummings21@bloomberg.net
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