MILFORD, Mich. —Mitt Romney attacked Rick Santorum on Thursday for saying that he voted for the federal No Child Left Behind legislation even though it went against his beliefs, seeing in his opponent’s candid acknowledgment a chance to undermine his claim to be the true conservative in the presidential race.
Romney and his campaign officials repeatedly criticized the former senator from Pennsylvania for saying in a debate Wednesday night that he voted for the education overhaul because he had to “take one for the team,” despite the bill being “against the principles I believed in.”
“He talked about this being ‘taking one for the team,’ ” Romney said at a morning campaign stop in Phoenix before jetting off to Michigan. “I wonder which team he was taking it for. My team is the American people, not the insiders in Washington. … I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a politician explain in so many ways why it was he voted against his principles.”
Santorum’s remarks, which he defended moments later when addressing reporters after the debate, played into Romney’s attempts to define his chief rival as a product of Washington.
On Glenn Beck’s Internet show Thursday evening, Santorum said he did not regret acknowledging during the debate that he had been wrong on occasion while he was a senator. He blamed the corrupting influence of Washington.
“I feel very good about the fact that I didn’t get sucked in very often,” he said. “I fought the battles and I was very much of a rabble-rousing conservative. But even I got — you know, every now and again I said, ‘Aw, jeez.’ “
While Romney held rallies in Arizona and Michigan, Santorum spent most of Thursday at private fundraisers in Texas. He is scheduled to return to Michigan for a rally this evening.
All week, polling has shown the Michigan race to be a dead heat between Romney and Santorum. A Detroit Free Press-WXYZ survey released Thursday had Santorum in a slight lead, 37 percent to 34 percent, which is within the margin of error.
Polls show Romney way ahead in Arizona, where his campaign has been mobilizing supporters since early voting began at the beginning of February.
Romney is pressing to win over recalcitrant conservatives. He is
using rhetoric that may come back to hurt him in a general-election contest against President Barack Obama, but he has calculated that he must use it now to secure the nomination.
In his Arizona speech, Romney lashed out at labor unions, an important political constituency in Rust Belt swing states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania, by charging that Obama “bows” to organized labor.
