Ron Paul makes clear he is not Romney's lapdog
Rep. Ron Paul wants to set the record straight: He is not Mitt Romney's lapdog.
The Texas lawmaker has not been shy about attacking his rivals during presidential debates, but some charge that Paul has left Romney completely alone in the 20 appearances the candidates have made on stage together.
Rick Santorum, who's often on the receiving end of Paul's attacks, has noticed and even accused the two camps of collusion.
Earlier this month, following a lackluster debate performance, Santorum suggested that Paul and Romney were purposefully ganging up on him.
"The coordination that I felt at that debate was pretty clear," he said. "I felt like messages were being slipped behind my chair. It's pretty remarkable that in 20 debates, Ron Paul never attacked Mitt Romney."
Both Paul and Mitt Romney have denied the charges, which have also come from some media outlets like the liberal Think Progress.
On Fox News Tuesday night, following Romney's victories in the Arizona and Michigan primaries, Paul addressed speculation that he may be going easy on Romney in order to help his son, Sen. Rand Paul, stay in the running as one of Romney's potential vice presidential choices.
Paul responded that he doesn't talk about the race with his son.
"We don't talk about it, and we don't think about it. I have my job, and he has his job, and that just doesn't seem to be appropriate," he said. "I have to see how well I can do in this campaign, but the last thing I've done is talked to Mitt Romney. Besides, he wouldn't talk to me about that. That's just fiction, and it's mostly been promoted by somebody, I guess, who's super involved in conspiracy theories. That's Santorum doing that."
As if to drive home the point, the Paul campaign announced Wednesday that it's launching an ad campaign that attacks all three GOP candidates, including Romney. The 60-second spot running in Washington state slams Romney, Santorum and Newt Gingrich as "three of a kind." The ad calls Gingrich a "serial hypocrite," Santorum a "counterfeit conservative" and Romney a "flip-flopper." Paul first ran the ad ahead of the South Carolina primary.
Washington state holds its Republican caucuses on March 3, and the Paul campaign is targeting that state since its delegates will be awarded proportionally. The libertarian congressman has been focused on collecting delegates in the nominating contests, if not winning any states outright. A Republican candidate must have 1,144 delegates to win the presidential nomination.
Romney, like Paul, has completely rejected the idea that there's any collusion between the two. When asked in an interview with the Fox Business Network this week whether there is any coordination, Romney said, "No, of course not."
Some pundits have speculated that while there may not be any true coordination, the Paul campaign may be betting that playing nice with Romney could pay off if the former Massachusetts governor is the eventual nominee.
"Paul's advisors have been candid in interviews in explaining that his goal in running this time is to pile up delegates and gain some influence at the convention, either in terms of input into the party's official 2012 platform or a primetime speaking gig or both," wrote prominent blogger Allahpundit at the conservative site HotAir.com. "That being so, it's only logical that they'd go easy on Romney. He was and is the likely nominee; the more helpful they are to him, the less resistance there'll be to a convention role for the Paul family, especially since Romney will be nervous about alienated libertarians staying home if he freezes Paul out."
