Santorum wonders if Romney is behind the latest chapter in the War on Christmas
Rick Santorum
is furious about a report that Mitt Romney is behind the Nevada GOP's decision to schedule its caucuses on Jan. 14, a move that will
likely push Iowa's caucuses into the Christmas holiday season:
In a statement to POLITICO, Santorum accused Romney of “trying to bully states” to rig the 2012 calendar for him. The Pennsylvanian called on his primary opponent to apologize.
“It’s not surprising when a campaign pushes for a leg up on the competition. But what is surprising in this case is that reports show Gov. Romney’s campaign appears to be pushing a state to break the rules for his campaign’s benefit,” Santorum said.
“This is Gov. Romney’s second presidential campaign — everybody knows him and what he claims to stand for, but like last time, he’s still not gaining real traction with conservatives,” he continued. “And trying to bully states so they’ll tailor the election calendar to favor your campaign won’t help his cause much.”
Not to defend Romney here, but if Iowa decides to move its caucuses to the Christmas holiday, that's their decision. Nobody put a gun to their head. But as you can see in the clip from Fox at the top of this post, Santorum is outraged and believes that if Mitt Romney was behind the push to move Nevada to Jan. 14, then he's guilty of an assault on Christmas and owes the public an apology.
If Governor Romney is doing this, I think he owes an apology to the people. We're going to have caucuses now at Christmas time. I mean, the day after Christmas is being suggested now as when the Iowa caucus is going to be held, this is a travesty. And to have this election be muddled as a result of, actually something more important, which is celebrating the Christmas season, I just think is a travesty to this process, and it's being done by somebody who's trying to move this forward for some political gain, because it makes no sense for these states to be moving this quickly and to push this up into the Christmas season.
And just to make sure that Santorum isn't all alone, Jon "Who?" Huntsman has joined in Santorum's criticism, accusing Romney of trying to "game the system."
So there you have it, folks: Now Republicans are accusing each other of waging a war on Christmas.
