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Romney hammers Santorum in telephone town-hall talk with 20,000 in Michigan
WASHINGTON, Feb 14, 2012 (Detroit Free Press - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
In a telephone town hall with thousands of Michigan voters Tuesday, Mitt Romney began hammering at Rick Santorum, the would-be rival looking to steal Romney's home state away from him in the Feb. 28 Republican primary.
Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who grew up in Bloomfield Hills, spent a half-hour on the conference call answering questions of voters and accusing Santorum of voting to raise the nation's debt ceiling without making compensating spending cuts, embracing congressional earmarks and voting against so-called right- to-work legislation that unions oppose.
Recent polls have suggested that Santorum -- the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania -- has closed the gap on Romney nationally and may be leading him in Michigan, despite what is perceived as Romney's home field advantage.
Santorum is expected to play up his own blue-collar roots in vying for Michigan and has defended his past positions in the Senate as those appropriate to his home state. In a similar way, Romney may need to be careful in criticizing unions including the UAW.
During the telephone town hall, he said, "There are unions that have been helpful and productive and others that have been unhelpful and counter-productive." He went on to add: "The Detroit auto industry was subject to excessive union demands and the management went along with that."
In the telephone town hall format, people who are called get to ask questions of the candidate. Romney took a series of about a half-dozen questions during the half-hour. The call went out to some 20,000 people in Michigan.
Romney left two impressions: First that he will go after Santorum. Second that he will play up his Michigan ties and promise to help a state that still has one of the nation's highest unemployment rates if elected president.
"Michigan is special to me. Michigan is where I was born and raised," he said. "If I'm elected Michigan will be personal to me. It's had a tough couple of decades."
___ (c)2012 the Detroit Free Press Visit the Detroit Free Press at
www.freep.com Distributed by MCT Information Services
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