Romney campaign pulls ad due to Bella Santorum's hospitalization
Mitt Romney's presidential campaign has pulled a new television ad that attacks Rick Santorum because his ailing daughter remains in the hospital.
"We have done this out of deference to Sen. Santorum's decision to suspend his campaign for personal family reasons," Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul said.
Santorum's 3-year-old daughter Bella, who suffers from the genetic disorder Trisomy 18, was hospitalized on Friday. While Santorum canceled all campaign-related activities Monday to be with his daughter, spokesman Hogan Gidley said the candidate will be back on the trail in Pennsylvania on Tuesday. Gidley told MSNBC Bella has had a "miraculous" turnaround.
"The family hopes to take her home a little bit later on today if she gets the all-clear from the doctors," Gidley said.
The Romney ad, "Historic," hits the former Pennsylvania senator for losing his 2006 re-election campaign. "We fired him as senator. Why promote him to president?" asks the narrator.
The campaign asked television stations across the state to pull the ad this morning, the earliest they could contact the stations because of the holiday weekend. However, according Kantar Media's Campaign Media Analysis Group, the spot did air early this morning on at least one station, KYW in Philadelphia. The ad will be replaced with a positive spot, named "Conservative Record."
According to the Pittsburg Tribune-Review, the former Massachusetts governor's campaign spent $2.9 million on the state-wide ad buy. The Romney campaign is hoping that a Santorum loss in his home state primary, slated for April 24, would hasten the end of the Republican nomination fight. A recent Quinnipiac poll gave Santorum a six point edge in the state.