The warm friendship between Ron Paul and Mitt Romney is starting to annoy their rivals, who are openly accusing the two candidates of forming a Survivor-style alliance.
Ron Paul has mostly refrained from tough attacks on Romney, who has some kind words in turn for Paul. The libertarian-leaning Congressman has instead used his debate performances and advertising dollars to go after the rest of the field. Thursday’s debate was no different as Paul lashed Santorum as a “fake” conservative, an attack he’s deployed in a TV spot in Michigan this week as well. Earlier in the race, he took a similar tack with Newt Gingrich. Neither campaign is pleased.
“You have to ask Congressman Paul and Gov. Romney what they’ve got going together,” Santorum told the Washington Examiner’s Byron York. “Their commercials look a lot alike, and so do their attacks.”
Santorum’s chief strategist, John Brabender, got into the action as well.
“Clearly there is a tag-team strategy between Ron Paul and Mitt Romney,” Brabender told reporters. “There’ve been 20 debates, right? Why don’t you go back and see how many times Ron Paul has ever criticized anything Mitt Romney has done.”
Rick Perry, acting as a surrogate for Newt Gingrich, also took note of the Paul/Romney team up in an interview with conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham on Thursday, describing it as a “‘partnership” that he found “interesting.”
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough called the relationship between Paul and Romney “bizarre” the same morning and offered some idle thoughts as to what either side was getting out of the deal.
“The thing that went unspoken but everybody knows, and that is that Mitt Romney and Ron Paul have formed an alliance,” Scarborough said. “It is such an obvious alliance that Mitt Romney would do well to just come out and admit it. I don’t know what he’s promised Ron Paul. I don’t know if Ron Paul is hoping that his son gets in the administration. But let’s just be really honest here — for all the people for Ron Paul to form an alliance with in the Republican Party, to pick out Mitt Romney is really bizarre.”
Benjy Sarlin
Benjy Sarlin is a reporter for Talking Points Memo and co-writes the campaign blog, TPM2012. He previously reported for The Daily Beast/Newsweek as their Washington Correspondent and covered local politics for the New York Sun.
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