Rick Santorum called Republicans rivals Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich “tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee” during a speech before South Carolina Republicans, saying that they had failed to take conservative positions on the biggest issues of the election cycle.

“How are we going to differentiate ourselves on the major issues of the day if we nominate tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee?” Santorum said today at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, noting that Gingrich and Romney have both supported individual mandates for health care in the past, and that they both supported the bank bailouts.