The two sparred from afar a day ahead of Tuesday's Republican nominating caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota, the latest contests in what has become almost a plodding race for the GOP nomination compared with last month's rapid-fire campaign.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Rep. Ron Paul also are competing, but neither was expected to have a breakout performance in either state.
Missouri Republicans also vote Tuesday, in a nonbinding primary; delegates to the national convention will be selected in a March 17 caucus.
Romney, who won both Colorado and Minnesota in 2008, hopes to extend his winning streak, though advisers acknowledged that a first-place finish was more likely in Colorado than in Minnesota.
The Republican Party in Minnesota has become more conservative in recent years, and Santorum's strong conservative positions on social issues could resonate with the state's strong contingent of evangelical voters.
A Saturday poll by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic survey firm, of 410 likely Minnesota caucus voters found Santorum with 29 percent to Romney's 27 percent, a statistical tossup given the poll's 4.8 percent margin of error.
Santorum, a Catholic, has a strong antiabortion record and consistently focuses on the issue. Romney, who once supported abortion rights, has struggled to win over those voters. But in a sign he is trying to do so, Romney's campaign rolled out a petition Monday focusing on religious liberty. The move was intended to challenge a recent Obama administration decision to require hospitals to distribute free birth control, a policy at odds with the religious teachings followed at many Catholic health-care facilities.
Clearly mindful of the shift in Minnesota, Santorum has worked that state and conservative areas of Colorado aggressively the last two weeks while Romney campaigned in Florida and Nevada and scored back-to-back victories. It was clear Monday that Santorum saw an opportunity to rise in the GOP race.
In an appearance across the street from the highly regarded Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., Santorum assailed Romney with gusto and said that making him the nominee would be "a devastating thing" for Republicans who want to see President Obama lose in the fall.
He also complained that Romney was running an attack machine - and turning it on him, saying: "Any time someone challenges Gov. Romney, Gov. Romney goes out and instead of talking about what he's for ... he just simply goes out and attacks and tries to destroy."
To squelch any rise by Santorum, Romney's campaign spent a second day holding conference calls hosted by surrogates and issuing news releases accusing Santorum of seeking earmarks when he represented Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate.
Romney himself weighed in during an interview with WCCO radio in Minneapolis, saying of Santorum: "His policies are, in my view, those of many Republicans in Congress who went along with Democrats to raise the debt ceiling, to allowing earmarks and to growing the size of federal government to a level that is frankly choking off the capacity of our economy to grow at the rate it should."
"I think his approach was not effective," Romney said, "and, frankly, I happen to believe if we're going to change Washington we can't just keep on sending the same people there in different chairs."
Romney campaigned in Minnesota a week ago but, in a sign he didn't expect to win, scrapped an appearance at a Minneapolis rally Monday morning in favor of campaigning in Colorado.
Gingrich, who also campaigned Monday in Colorado, attacked Romney's record in Massachusetts and said he "basically accommodated liberal Democrats." Gingrich has little organization in any of the states that vote this week and is instead looking ahead to the spate of Southern states that vote on Super Tuesday, March 6.
What's Coming Up
Forthcoming events in the Republican presidential contest:
Tuesday: Colorado and Minnesota Republican caucuses; nonbinding Missouri primary.
Saturday: Maine caucus results released
Feb. 22: CNN/Arizona Republican Party debate, Mesa, Ariz.
Feb. 28: Arizona and Michigan primaries.
March 1: CNN/Georgia Republican Party debate, Atlanta, Ga.
March 3: Washington state caucuses.
March 6: "Super Tuesday": primaries in Georgia, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia; caucuses in Alaska, Idaho, North Dakota, and Wyoming.
View a full election calendar via
philly.com/2012calendar
