Rick Santorum has denied pushing Mitt
Romney to take right-wing positions on social issues during the GOP
nominating contest, a move many believe cost him the election.
During an appearance on cabler CNN's
Piers Morgan Tonight, host Piers Morgan asked Santorum if he
had pushed Romney into an “unholy mess.”
“Some people are blaming you for Mitt
Romney's failure, and I'll explain to you why before you look aghast
in horror,” Morgan said. “Allow me to elaborate. What they're
saying is if he hadn't been pushed into fairly right-wing, quite
extreme positions as many see them, on social issues in his battle
against the likes of you earlier this year for the Republican nominee
race, that he wouldn't have got himself into this unholy mess of
being branded 'against women,' 'against gay rights,' against all the
other social issue hot-button topics that you know about. Do you
plead guilty?”
“Mitt Romney, from what I understand,
had the positions that he articulated in this election cycle, he had
the same positions four years ago,” Santorum answered. “So the
idea that somehow I forced him to change his opinion on anything.
I'm not aware of any position that Mitt Romney took that was changed
as a result of the Republican primary.”
On the issue of gay marriage, Santorum
and other GOP candidates opposed to the institution, including
Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann, aggressively accused
Romney of advancing marriage equality as governor of Massachusetts.
(Related: Mitt
Romney stunned by Rick Santorum claims that Romney advanced gay
marriage.)
Santorum
added that Romney failed to “vigorously defend the beliefs that
he said he espoused and didn't go on the offense.”
“When you're playing defense, which
is what I believe the campaign was doing and Republicans were doing
generally throughout the course of this campaign, you're not going to
win.”