1. The national and Michigan polls seem to be trending in Santorum’s direction to a greater or lesser degree. It isn’t obvious to me what Romney does about this but this anti-Santorum ad isn’t getting it done. Does anybody on Earth believe that Romney believes that balancing the federal budget in one year without tax increases is some kind of moral imperative? Please raise your hand. Anybody? You? Oh, you were just stretching. Romney just has no credibility when he dings Santorum for voting to raise the debt ceiling. If elected, both Santorum and Romney would support a debt ceiling increase alongside other policies.
2. The Romney camp’s criticism of Santorum for voting for the deficit-increasing Medicare prescription drug program is better grounded. Since it wasn’t paired with new revenue, the prescription drug program really did increase the cost of our structurally unsustainable old age entitlements. But I’m not sure that an extended argument about Medicare Part D does Romney much good. Does Romney want to abolish the program? I don’t think so Does Romney want to increase taxes to offset the costs. No again. That takes a lot of the bite out of Romney’s criticism. Romney also sets himself up for some devastating counterpunches. Santorum can point out that Medicare Part D is one of the few government programs whose costs came in under projections. Much more importantly, Santorum can point out that Medicare Part D looks a lot like Paul Ryan’s premium support version of Medicare reform while Romneycare’s model of guaranteed issue, community rating, coverage mandates and insurance purchase mandate looks a lot like Obamacare.
This is an issue that engages Santorum’s enthusiasm and Santorum has done the work to construct arguments. Romney might score with a two minute exchange about how Santorum is a professional politician who hasn’t worked a real job since his twenties and is the kind of big government, big spender who is bankrupting the private sector and the nation. I don’t buy it coming from Romney (and I don’t think work in Congress should be looked down on), but then again, I don’t buy much of anything coming from Romney. Maybe it works on some voters. An extended fight on Medicare Part D that turns into an extended fight on health care policy looks to me to be bad for Romney. But it would be good for public understanding of health care policy, so I’m all for it!
3. And yet Santorum still isn’t getting as much support from right-leaning elites as you would think. I was watching the Fox News 6:00 PM show last night and it said Santorum had made a $42,000 ad buy in Michigan. It sounded like a number for a presidential primary in the mid-1960s. The best Republican office holders have either come out for Romney (a minority) or are holding aloof. It seems to me that even a lot of people who like Santorum more than Romney are just relieved to have a non-Romney candidate who isn’t a disgrace like Cain or Gingrich.)
