The American Spectator

In keeping with my pledge (below) on coverage of the intraparty campaign, I pass this on without comment. Rick Santorum just held a phone press briefing with national reporters, but took no questions. Here, to the best of my ability to transcribe, are highlights of what he said:

“[I will keep talking about] the most important issue out there which is freedom. The signature thing out there on this front is Obamacare…. Governor Romney throughout the course of his governorship and afterwards was an advocate for the individual mandate …. What you have with Governor Romney is someone who simply is not the genuine article. People… just don’t trust Mitt Romney to not do what is the fashionable thing at the moment …. [examples given: cap and trade; Obamacare mandate, several others].

[My record is different. I and now-Gov. John Kasich introduced Medical Savings Accounts back in the early 1990s, a free-market,] bottom up approach. We did this. It’s a sharp contrast to someone who jumps at the latest fad… but who doesn’t do what’s necessary to keep this government limited and keep our people free. There is one conserative you can trust who is someone who won’t go with the popular flow but who stands for limited government …..
[Romney wasn’t just wrong;] he mislad the public about what his position was. He was in fact anadvocate for something he said he wasn’t.”

Santorum also urged people to go back and look at or read a speech he gave in Rochester, MN, outlining the 15 different ways that Romneycare and Obamacare were “identical,” which “makes Governor Romney uniquely unqualified to take on this president on the most important issue of this election.”

(NOTE from Quin: Here was my pledge: I will no longer write any formal columns about the GOP intra-party presidential contest, nor will I blog about it except to report breaking news developments in a sort of FYI format without my own comments — with the exception of doing straight news-type reports if any candidate comes through my neck of the woods on the Gulf Coast, as several are expected to do before the March 13 primaries in Alabama and Mississippi. [If I make any other exceptions, I will explain WHY I am making such an exception.])

Again, Santorum took no questions, citing another interview for which he was scheduled….