Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) is slamming two of his likely presidential rivals as “bomb throwers” in a sign of what’s to come in the 2016 campaign.
{mosads}Santorum ripped Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) by name.
“Do we really want someone with this little experience?” Santorum told The New York Times when asked about them and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a trio of first-term senators. “And the only experience they have basically — not Rubio, but Cruz and Paul because I don’t think Rubio is going to go — is bomb throwing? Do we really want somebody who’s a bomb thrower, with no track record of any accomplishments?”
Santorum also knocked former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), attacking his conservative bona fides. Huckabee’s religious, blue-collar political base overlaps heavily with Santorum’s.
“He has to talk about Common Core. I love talking about Common Core,” Santorum said, pointing to Huckabee’s past support of the national education standards hated by many conservatives. “He has to talk about immigration and the Dream Act. I love talking about immigration and the Dream Act. He has to talk about taxes; I haven’t voted for a tax increase. I have a 100 percent record on taxes, signed every pledge every year.”
Santorum, the 2012 runner-up for the GOP nomination, lags far behind in most national and early state polls. But he’s signaling he could be a major thorn in the side of the other candidates competing for the conservative mantle in the primary — and could do damage to some of their candidacies as he elbows for room in the field.