Romney Keeps His Focus on Obama as Campaign Attacks Santorum

(Wall Street Journal) - GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. -- Mitt Romney's campaign spent Monday filling reporters' email inboxes with attacks against Rick Santorum, but Romney himself focused most of his own barbs at President Barack Obama.

At a rally in Grand Junction, Colo., Romney, the frontrunner in the Republican presidential race, made no mention of any of his rivals as he delivered a general election message, leaving it to campaign operatives to undercut the competition.

Still, Romney was quick to expound on his health care views early on in his speech on a day when Santorum took aim at the former governor's record in Massachusetts.

"We have a president who thinks that the federal government and its bureaucrats can do a better job managing health care and caring for us than we can care for ourselves," Romney said. "My view is we should return to the states the responsibility for caring for their uninsured."

The campaign, meanwhile, had blasted five emails Monday that took turns decrying Santorum's attacks, criticizing the former Pennsylvania senator's record on earmarks and highlighting the fact Santorum endorsed Romney in 2008.

But Romney remained focused on the president. With Obama saying in a pre-Super Bowl interview on NBC that he deserves a second term, Romney relied on a line that is becoming one of his favorites.

"I'm afraid based upon the president's own standard he has failed," Romney said, citing Obama's 2009 statement that he would be facing "a one-term proposition" if he could not turn around the economy.

"He does not deserve a second term," Romney said.

Read more at WSJ.com