Romney fails to shake off ‘insider’ Santorum

Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign would like to be focusing its attacks on Democratic President Barack Obama around now.

But after failing to seize control of the Republican nomination race on Super Tuesday, Romney cannot shake off rival Rick Santorum, whom he criticised as a political insider.

Opening up a new front against Santorum, the Romney campaign acc-used him of being a lobbyist in his home state of Pennsylvania even before he went to Washington in 1991.

Romney’s campaign also attacked Santorum for holding regular meetings with lobbyists as a US Senate leader, part of the Republican “K Street Project” seeking to increase the party’s influence in the capital.

“Senator Santorum’s claims to be a Washington outsider are at odds with the facts. After serving as a lobbyist in Pennsylvania before running for Congress, Santorum became a go-to guy for DC lobbyists while he served in the Senate,” Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said in a statement headlined: ‘Lobbyist/Congressman/Senator Rick Santorum: The Insider’s Insider.’

With an appeal to evangelicals and conservatives that Romney often lacks, Santorum is challenging the idea his rival is the inevitable Republican nominee to face Obama in November’s election.

Santorum could pick up support in a series of primary fights this month in the kind of strongly Republican states where the former Massachusetts governor has had little success so far.

To help fend off the challenge, the Super PAC outside spending group that supports Romney — by far the biggest fundraiser in the Republican field — has been pouring millions of dollars into anti-Santorum advertising.

Conservative Kansas, where Santorum is the favourite, holds its caucuses today. Alabama and Mississippi, two southern states where evangelical Christians are a big voting bloc, have primaries on Tuesday.

Romney would like to win in any of those Republican strongholds, after securing most of his primary and caucus victories to date in states that supported Obama in the 2008 election.