Rick Santorum suggested the Republican presidential primary would soon become a two-man race where he will measure up well to front-runner Mitt Romney.
“Hopefully after this Tuesday, this will be a two-person race, and we can get down to business of deciding whether we want a conservative or a moderate to go up against Barack Obama,” Santorum said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt” airing this weekend.
Santorum, 53, said he expects to win tomorrow’s Kansas caucuses and finish first or second in the March 13 primaries in Alabama and Mississippi, which would set up a head-to-head race against Romney.
Though he shied away from directly calling on rival Newt Gingrich to drop out of the race, Santorum cited the former U.S. House speaker’s defeats in recent primaries as a sign that his opponent is losing momentum in the race.
Gingrich, who won two primaries -- in South Carolina on Jan. 21 and in his home state of Georgia on March 6 -- has “finished third or fourth everywhere else, which has been a consistent pattern,” said Santorum. “So we feel pretty good that it’s now narrowing to a two-person race.”
Top Santorum advisers have called for Gingrich to exit the race and let the former Pennsylvania senator consolidate the support of anti-Romney voters.
‘Timid’ on Economy
Speaking from the USS Alabama, Santorum dismissed Romney’s economic plans as “timid,” saying his proposals would make deeper cuts in taxes and government spending.
“We have a much, much more bold plan, much more oriented toward growth, and much more oriented towards shrinking the size of government,” he said.
Separately, former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, a co- chairman of the Romney campaign, expressed confidence that Romney was well on his way to winning the nomination.
“People always assume that somehow Newt and Rick are splitting this so-called non-Romney vote, and if one of them dropped out, that could bode ill for Mitt’s chances,” he said in another interview on “Political Capital.” “That may not be true at all, but we can’t control that anyhow, and Mitt is doing very well. I think he’s going to be the nominee.”
Pawlenty said Romney has better credentials for handling the economy. ’’Mitt Romney’s actually done this stuff,’’ he said of the co-founder of the private equity firm Bain Capital LLC. “He awas somebody who invested in businesses, grew busineess, provided jobs.”
Still, Pawlenty said Romney faced “challenging” contests in Alabama and Mississippi, where many Southern voters remain skeptical of Romney’s conservative credentials.
Raising Taxes
Santorum worked to underscore those doubts today. When asked if he believed Romney’s pledge not to raise taxes, Santorum pointed to his rival’s record, saying Romney raised taxes and trailed in job creation.
“I don’t know whether he pledged as governor of Massachusetts not to raise taxes, but he did,” Santorum said. “He raised it by, you know, close to $1 billion.”
The Center for a Responsible Federal Budget found that Santorum would lower tax rates by eliminating almost every tax benefit for individuals not related to charity, mortgage interest, health care, retirement or children -- such as tax deductions for municipal bonds and state and local property.
Santorum rejected the report, saying his plan wouldn’t increase taxes on anybody.
Simplifying the Code
“The idea that by simplifying the tax code, that we’re going to now start including certain areas of income that we haven’t included in the past are simply not something that we proposed in any document that we’ve issued or any statement I’ve made,” he said.
On jobs, Santorum said the Obama administration doesn’t deserve credit for signs of an improving economy and a payrolls report today that represents a “step forward.”
“You have an administration that - that has consistently seen, you know, bad job reports because of bad policies that have led to those job reports,” he said. “Eventually, you know, the economy does recover, in spite of the headwinds that this administration has put in its place.”
Employers added 227,000 jobs in February, more than forecast, the Labor Department reported in Washington. That growth held the U.S. unemployment rate steady at 8.3 percent.
© Copyright 2023 Bloomberg News. All rights reserved.