Rick Santorum exposed Mitt Romney's soft underbelly this past Tuesday in Michigan, Missouri, and Colorado with huge victories in all three states. Santorum's consistent conservative message and positive vision for America resonated strongly with voters in all three states, giving him a clean sweep. The Romney camp might have seen some of the writing on the wall on Monday, as the lowered expectations of victory in Colorado, which Romney won big in 2008. What they didn't see was the huge margins of victory that Santorum would win by.
You knew that Romney would have reassess the effectiveness of Santorum and his threat to his pre-ordained status of being the GOP nominee. Why is Santorum's message resonating and Romney's stale? Instead, Romney reverted to form, and like he did with Gingrich, started attacking Santorum. He has not reassessed what his message, or lack thereof, is. His campaign thus far is a redux of his losing 2008 campaign, which is a very generic message combined with personal attacks on his opponents. No vision. No specifics. No fire.
Santorum, on the other hand, has communicated a staunch conservative platform, put forth concrete ideas, and has done it with cheer and a positive message. If there has been a knock against Santorum, it is that he has been too nice. Fair enough. Up to this point Santorum's biggest "attack" has been in the Florida debate where he exposed Romney on 'RomneyCare', where Romney was flustered in trying to articulately make a distinction between his plan and ObamaCare. The lack of distinction was not lost on those who viewed it.
Rick Santorum is now showing a different facet of himself. He is not a pushover. He won't just stand there, smile, and take attacks from Romney without punching back. The difference between Santorum returning fire and the effectiveness of the attacks against Gingrich is that it may be Romney who gets the black eye this time.
Energized Santorum Unloads on Romney's 'Gotcha Politics'
Updated: February 9, 2012 | 1:53 p.m.
February 9, 2012 | 1:11 p.m.
OKLAHOMA CITY – No more Mr. Nice Guy for Rick Santorum.
The newly-energized presidential candidate on Thursday launched a full-throated attack on front-runner Mitt Romney, saying the former Massachusetts governor’s campaign “has been about serially tearing down opponents without offering any kind of vision for what he wants to do for this country.
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