On Fox News last night, Mitt Romney dismissed Rick Santorum’s “Rombo” ad, which features a Mitt Romney look-alike shooting mud at a cardboard cutout of a smiling Santorum, as the “the most negative ad I’ve seen, so far,” per GOP12.
“Look, it’s not something I’m going to whine about,” Romney added. “I know there’s some candidates that want to whine about the fact that you go back-and-forth and talk about the distinctions between one another.”
The use of “whine” was not accidental. Discussing how the Romney campaign intended to take down Santorum’s poll numbers, a Romney adviser told BuzzFeed earlier this week that they intended to stress issues — such as earmarks and votes to hike the debt limit — that they anticipated would irritate Santorum. “The expectation is that Santorum, just given his personality, is going to whine like crazy about this,” said the adviser.
UPDATE: Turns out Romney himself has been running this negative ad in Michigan, via Politico:
The Romney campaign did not e-mail media outlets about this ad, as is customary when a campaign releases a new ad.