Santorum: Romney just a "Wall Street financier" with a lousy jobs record

ROCKFORD, Ill. - Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum tore into Mitt Romney's economic record Monday, painting him as a Wall Street crony with a poor record of job creation as governor.

"I heard Gov. Romney here called me an economic lightweight because I wasn't a Wall Street financier like he was. Do you really believe this country wants to elect a Wall Street financier as the president of the United States? Do you think that's the kind of experience that we need?" he asked several hundred people who gathered to hear him speak here Monday morning.

Santorum said Romney was looking after "his friends on Wall Street" by supporting the 2008 bank bailout, then moved on to Romney's job creation record as governor of Massachusetts.

"It wasn't the worst. It was third from the worst. Forty-seven out of 50," Santorum said. "You hear him talk about 'oh I created jobs in the private sector' but he didn't do anything in Massachusetts to create an environment for jobs. Why? Because he exploded the size and scale of government in Massachusetts. Something exactly the opposite of what this country needs right now."

Santorum hardly provided a strong defense of his own economic abilities, however. He spoke of his work on a technology company that failed after three years. "One of the things I found in life is you learn a lot more from your failures than you do from your successes," Santorum said.

Romney's camp responded by reiterating its attack on Santorum. "Senator Santorum ought to scare every conservative when it comes to his economic record. He's an economic lightweight. We should know that we're not going to turn around this economy by replacing one former senator with zero job-creating experience with another senator with zero job-creating experience," said spokeswoman Andrea Saul.

[longtree-2009]

everytime santorum opens his mouth he just comes across as a very desperate man. that aside, lets not forget that obama was relatively unknown and untested on any major USA policy yet he defeated hillary for the nomination. obama then defeated the conservative and evangelical darlings mccain/palin by a landslide defeat. don't know for sure if romney or santorum will get the nomination but believe newt and ron paul should drop out as they are only muddying the waters and helping obama win again. romney is a moderate as is obama so it would make for an interesting election and hopefully not a landslide defeat for either man.

[retm-w]

A Washington lobbyest complaing about Wall St. No difference between the two.

[uisignorant]

And Ricky has no brain....Go see the wizard and stop whining.

[Filmguy870]

...no...RICKY! (Beauty School dropout!)

[uisignorant]

Take them both.

[uisignorant]

And you Ricky are just a slimy politician. I always said if someone with a successful business background ran for president I would vote for them regardless of party. GO MITT!

[ProtectAmericanJobs]

We need whoever wins the next election to Start Protecting American Jobs and do whatever it takes to bring back the jobs they let go. They've got to give us somebody who will stand up for the American people.

We need to bring manufacturing back to the United States of America and both parties are ignoring tariffs as a way to level the playing field, raise money and bring jobs back home. Let's guess why. Oh that's right, tariff is a dirty word. Hum, maybe it's that our so called leaders (political leaders) are beholden to the same people who are exporting our jobs.

I guess we should keep letting Corp Boards, Wall Street and CEOs promote sending US jobs to countries where they work for slave wages, no benefits, no OSHA safety standards or no real environment regulations. How's that been working for us?

The so called "Global Market Place" is not a level playing field. Companies may have made higher profits by "out sourcing", but they've been putting middle class Americans who are a good part of the world's customer base out of work. I'm not a lefty or member of any union. I run a business that employs over 20 people and produces products that are purchased by customers that do manufacturing and packaging. I'm just an average Joe, but I've been saying this for more than 10 years now. If I can see it, so can our so called leaders (political leaders) who are beholden to the same people who are exporting our jobs.

We need to add tariffs that are proportionate to the inequities in wages and regulations in the country where the goods were produced and or where we're importing them from. We could then use the money raised by these tariffs to help companies build state of the art manufacturing plants here in the USA, which would create more jobs here at home for US citizens, which would then in turn increase our income tax revenue.

We need to bring manufacturing back to the United States of America and both parties are ignoring tariffs as a way to level the playing field, raise money and bring jobs back home. Bringing manufacturing back to the US not only gives jobs to the US citizens who would be working in those manufacturing facilities, but to the people that would be working in the businesses that would spring up all around them. This should also include the safe harvesting, production and distribution of our own natural energy here in the USA, rather than paying for fuel from countries where they hate us. Let's keep that money and those jobs here in the US.

We may have to pay a bit more for products made here in the USA by US citizens, but at least we'll still have jobs and a future for our children.

The bottom line is that "Our Government" has to protect American industry and the jobs that those industries provide. If they do that, the rest will take care of itself.

[abby_del_abbey]

And Santorum the Sanctimonious demonstrates far too much interest in other people's sex lives. Something sick about Rick....

[cntrygirl3]

Mr. Santorum was in the leadership of the senate that presided over the huge expansion in government spending without revenue that got us into this mess. lefty is right (sorry) the people of Pennsylvania fired the man because he was an incredibly bad senator, called the stupidest man in the senate by his own party. Now they want to nominate him for president which is truly sad.

[WHAT-IS-HE-SMOKING]

Now, don't tell me that a republican is against Wall Street! Does he want more oversight of Wall Street? I thought the republicans wanted less government involvement in business. I wish they would make up their minds.

[stevex47]

If robme is a financier, what is santorum? Look it up on google !

[VictorAshesLoveChild]

OMG this is sweet.

Not only is the Grand Oil Party disassembling itself in public, but Santorum, Romney, and Gingrich are handing the Democrats their script for attacking whichever clown gets nominated.

What a wonderful time to be a liberal.