Santorum Addresses Super PAC Donors, Releases Negative Romney Ad - East Idaho News
News

Santorum Addresses Super PAC Donors, Releases Negative Romney Ad

  Published at

GETTY Santorum?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1330031658909Justin Sullivan/Getty Images(PHOENIX) — Off the campaign trail Thursday, Rick Santorum is appearing at a fundraiser for his Super PAC in Dallas.

Candidates and campaigns are not allowed to “coordinate” with their Super PACs, but they are permitted to address these groups. Mitt Romney has spoken at his Super PAC fundraisers as well. Candidates must leave before the “ask” portion of the event takes place.

Foster Friess, the main donor to the “Red White and Blue Fund,” was planning on being there too, but he’s on an around-the-world trip with his wife, Lynn, for about three weeks.

After the CNN debate on Wednesday evening, Santorum was asked in the spin room, where reporters gather, what he was planning to tell the donors.

“It’s a fundraiser, I’m not doing a Super PAC event,” Santorum said, either incorrectly or falsely.

Santorum’s national communications director Hogan Gidley said he wasn’t sure what Santorum meant by the incorrect statement. And just because he’s off the trail doesn’t mean the campaign isn’t still waging its battle for Michigan, where Santorum will be back campaigning Friday. On Thursday the campaign released a new negative television ad that goes hard after Romney in his home state.

“I don’t line up with the National Rifle Association (NRA),” the ad reads, attributing the statement to Romney and the source as the Boston Globe.

“I will preserve and protect a woman’s right to choose,” the ad continues, sourcing a debate Romney participated in during his 2002 campaign for Massachusetts governor.

The Romney campaign hit back, calling it a “dishonest attack ad.”

On Wednesday, an NBC/Marist poll of Michigan voters showed Romney with 37-percent support and Santorum 35 percent. The state, along with Arizona, votes Tuesday. A new Quinnipiac poll also out Wednesday showed Santorum over Romney nationally 35 percent to 26 percent.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

SUBMIT A CORRECTION