Santorum wants promises from Romney before backing

Post Reply New Topic

By PHILIP ELLIOTT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rick Santorum wants to ensure the GOP’s policy platform represents conservatives’ interests. Newt Gingrich wants help retiring his campaign debt and repairing his reputation.

Both Republicans are expected to endorse their former rival Mitt Romney – and signal to their backers to fall in line behind the party’s presumptive nominee – but each wants assurances that Romney will deliver for them. Neither is rushing toward the task.

Meanwhile, it doesn’t appear that Rep. Ron Paul of Texas is going to go that way. Paul is still in the race and hasn’t yet recognized Romney as the party’s nominee. The tea party favorite and former Libertarian presidential nominee seems unlikely to endorse given deep differences with Romney on economic and foreign policy issues.

Romney plans to meet Santorum on Friday and Gingrich plans to endorse him this week, an end-of-primary dance that happens every four years once the party settles on a nominee.

Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, quit the race April 10 but has stopped short of publicly embracing Romney as the GOP’s standard bearer after a bitter primary season that featured Santorum calling Romney “the worst Republican in the country” to run against Obama.

Not long after, Santorum was telling CNN’s Piers Morgan about Romney, “It’s very clear that he’s going to be the Republican nominee and I’m going to be for the Republican nominee and we’re going to do everything we can to defeat Barack Obama.” Morgan could not goad him into a proper endorsement.

Gingrich all but bowed out last week, saying: “It’s clear Romney is the nominee and the focus should be on defeating Obama. We should not focus on defeating ourselves.”

He plans to officially end his campaign in the coming days and endorse Romney.

Romney, for his part, has been working to bring the party together after a bruising primary season, and nods from Santorum and Gingrich could help mend those wounds. Both Santorum and Gingrich have fervent followings among conservatives who make up the base of the party and who generally view Romney skeptically because of his positions on a host of issues.

Romney has changed his position on bedrock issues such as abortion and gay rights. He supported the 2008 Wall Street bailout that angered conservatives and paved the way for the rise of the tea party. And he signed a healthcare overhaul as governor that provided the groundwork for Democrats’ national law that requires all Americans to buy insurance or face a fine. Romney’s healthcare overhaul in Massachusetts required healthcare coverage.

That’s the primary issue Santorum plans to discuss Friday when he meets privately with Romney.

“We want to make sure he doesn’t replace it with any kind of mandate,” Santorum adviser Hogan Gidley said. He added, “Rick just wants to have a candid, open conversation about making sure the folks in the 11 states that voted for him, and the conservative movement, have a voice in the Romney campaign.”

Advisers caution that an endorsement – or a public appearance for that matter – is unlikely to immediately follow Santorum’s private meeting with Romney.

For Santorum, there are political considerations if he is to keep the door open to a future presidential run. He has tremendous sway among conservatives, and is mindful of his personal political brand. Embracing a candidate whom some conservatives don’t trust could backfire in the long run because many of Santorum’s supporters voted for him in hopes of preventing Romney from winning.

So, people close to Santorum said, he wants assurances from Romney that the party’s platform would represent conservatives’ interests, and that Romney would govern as a conservative.

Romney should promise an ambassadorship to Antartica. Let's all hope and pray.

Santorum endorsed Romney in 2008. He's not fooling anyone. Besides being a religious psycho he isn't any more conservative than Mitt Romney.