Former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum offered a candid assessment of Mitt Romney’s chances in an interview with the Daily Beast’s Howard Kurtz published Wednesday.
“If the campaign is about issues, we win,” Santorum said. “If it’s about Mitt Romney’s record as a businessman, then we don’t win. If it’s about Mitt Romney’s tax returns, then we don’t win. If it’s about whether people like Mitt Romney more than Barack Obama, then we don’t win.”
Santorum and Romney were locked in an often heated campaign for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination earlier this year. The former Pennsylvania senator frequently insisted that Romney was ill-suited to win a general election campaign, due to his moderate record as governor of Massachusetts and history of reversing positions. But Santorum told Kurtz that those sharp criticisms levied at Romney are now water under the bridge.
“I don’t think that’s a big deal,” Santorum said. “It was a primary. We were competing against each other. We had differences. Those differences pale in comparison to Obama.”