Rick Santorum defended his decision to call Democrats and encourage them to vote for him today, describing the call as a “very positive” effort to explain his manufacturing policy — but the call he was discussing doesn’t seem to praise Santorum’s manufacturing, it just attacks Romney for opposing the auto bailout.
“It’s a very positive robocall talking about what we’re doing to create jobs here in Michigan,” Santorum told Sean Hannity last night, after saying that ‘we talk about our manufacturing plan and what we’re doing to create jobs.” Santorum also said he hopes to prove that he can “attract Democrats” and so prove his general election viability.
But the call that Hannity played for Santorum is an attack on Romney, with apparently nothing to say about Santorum’s policies. Here’s text of the clip that Hannity played for Santorum. “On Tuesday, send a message to Mitt Romney by voting for Rick Santorum for president,” the speaker says. “This call is supported by hard-working Democratic men and women and paid for by Rick Santorum for president.”
Moments earlier, the call attacks Romney’s position on bailouts.”Romney supported the bailouts for his Wall Street billionaire buddies, but opposed the auto bailouts,” says the caller. “That was a slap in the face to Michigan workers, and we’re not going to let Romney get away with it.” There isn’t a word about Santorum’s manufacturing policies, at least not in the call recording obtained by Talking Points Memo. (For what it’s worth, another recording of the call posted on Youtube by JimHeath2012 corroborates the TPM version of the call.)
That said, both the TPM and Heath recordings indicate the call begins midsentence, with the words “by voting for Rick Santorum — that’s right . . .” It seems possible that the posted recordings cut off the first few seconds, which could hold the positive message that Santorum was touting to Hannity.
