GOP race: down to the wire

Associated Press

FLINT, Mich.

Republican Mitt Romney fought Saturday to prove he is the strongest challenger to President Barack Obama, an increasingly difficult task given the tight race in his native state of Michigan against surging conservative Rick Santorum.

In the final weekend of campaigning before Tuesday’s Michigan and Arizona primaries, Romney focused on central and southeast Michigan’s urban and industrial centers in hopes of pulling ahead of Santorum.

With a Michigan victory, Santorum could solidify his place as a real threat to Romney heading into Super Tuesday, the 10-state sweepstakes in March. Santorum’s victories so far have come in lower-turnout party caucuses.

While Romney kept most of his attention on the Democratic incumbent, he also worked to lay doubt about the core principles of his lightly funded main GOP rival.

Romney is the one facing stubborn doubts from some conservatives for his changed positions on social issues, but he tried to portray Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, as a Washington insider with cracks in his own conservative credentials.

Santorum called such criticism “laughable” and said Michigan, where Romney was born and raised and his father was governor, was winnable.

A crowd in Lansing heard Romney accuse Santorum of caving to party leaders on issues he opposed, including financing Planned Parenthood.

“This is not time for lifelong pols who explain why they voted for this or that based on what they were asked to do by their fellow colleagues,” Romney told about 300 activists gathered for breakfast at a country club. “I will be a president of principle.”

Later in Flint, he declared himself a Washington, D.C., outsider and implied Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, is an insider: “I don’t have any political payoffs I have to make.”

Santorum, who has portrayed himself as a loyal conservative and is popular among evangelical conservatives, ridiculed Romney’s claims.

“It is absolutely laughable to have a liberal governor of Massachusetts suggest that I am not a conservative,” Santorum said to cheers to the same group. “He repeatedly gets up and says all these things that he didn’t do that he did do. Folks, this is an issue of trust.”

The volleys over principle and loyalty punctuate the all-out two-man race in Michigan, leaving behind Texas Rep. Ron Paul and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.