Earmarks Prove Tricky Subject for Santorum
February 22, 2012 | 9:05 PM
Wednesday's GOP presidential debate was among the most important two hours in Rick Santorum's presidential campaign. So it probably wasn't a boon to his campaign that he spent a lot of it defending one of Congress's most unpopular practices: earmarks.
The former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, who spent 16 years in Washington in the House and the Senate, offered a wonky argument explaining why he supported earmarks. Rather than blast them as an example of government excess, Santorum said they were a necessary check on a president's power.
"I stepped forward, as Jim DeMint did, who, by the way, was an earmarker, as almost everybody in congress was," Santorum said. "Why? Because congress has a role of allocating resources when they think the administration has it wrong. I defended that at the time. I'm proud I defended it at the time because I think they did make mistakes."
His answer at times rambled, as Romney captured when he quipped, "I didn't follow all of that."
The former Massachusetts governor pounced on the topic, using it to paint Santorum as a Washington insider. Criticized for requesting an earmark when running the Salt Lake City Olympics, Romney produced one of the night's most memorable quotes.
"While I was fighting to save the Olympics, you were fighting to save the bridge to nowhere," Romney said.
It's a dangerous topic for Santorum, one that makes him look like part of the very political system he's vowing to change. And it's been among the Romney campaign's most ardent lines of attack since Santorum emerged as his most dangerous challenger earlier this month. But he has also vigorously defended the practice of earmarks before, making any move to disavow them now tricky at best.
The ex-Keystone State lawmaker did get an assist from Newt Gingrich, who originally began defending Romney's request for earmarks for the Olympics but ultimately criticized him.
"I think it's kind of silly for you to turn around and run an ad attacking somebody else claiming that what you got was right and what they got was wrong," said Gingrich.
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