You'd think that Rick Santorum would be pleased with Mitt Romney's flip-flop on the Blunt amendment. After all, Romney went from a reasonable pro-birth control position shared by most Americans to the same wildly unpopular anti-birth control position held by Santorum and most other Republicans. But Santorum isn't happy:
“We saw an insight into what’s in the gut of Governor Romney yesterday,” Santorum told supporters at a rally Thursday morning in Georgia. [...] “When Gov. Romney was asked that question, his knee-jerk reaction was, ‘Oh, I can’t be for it,’ ” Santorum charged. “Well, then after his consultants talk to him, he said, ‘Well, I didn’t understand the question.’ Well, maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. If I was asked that question, my gut reaction . . . would be, ‘You stand for the First Amendment; you stand for freedom of religion.’ ”
Perhaps Santorum is angry because during the initial response, Romney took direct aim at Santorum. Here's the transcript again:
QUESTION: [Santorum] has brought contraception into this campaign. The issue of birth control, contraception. Blunt-Rubio is being debated, I believe, later this week, that deals with banning—or allowing employers to ban providing female contraception. Have you taken a position on it? [Santorum] has said he was for that, and we'll talk about personhood in a second, but he's for that. Have you taken a position?
ROMNEY: I'm not for the bill, but look, the idea of presidential candidates getting into questions about contraception within a relationship between a man and a woman, a husband and a wife, I'm not going there.
So it's true that Mitt Romney's first reaction was to take aim at Rick Santorum for trying to legislate the bedroom—but now
Romney's said he didn't understand what he was talking about, and that he and Santorum are on the same page after all. So cheer up, Rick. Your presence in the race forced Mitt Romney to take a stand against birth control. You should be pleased with yourself, not mad.
