MOLINE, Ill. — The leading contenders in the Republican presidential race spent Sunday laying the groundwork for a furious if not acrimonious final push for votes heading into the eve of Illinois' primary.
Mitt Romney caravanned from the Quad Cities, on the Iowa border, to Vernon Hills, Ill., a Chicago suburb. Romney's campaign worked to raise doubts about Rick Santorum's conservative credentials while he continued to question his rival's ability to help fix the nation's economy.
"Sen. Santorum, I think, has the same characteristic as the president in terms of his background," Romney told a crowd of more than 200 people at an American Legion hall pancake breakfast in Moline. "He spent his life in government. Nothing wrong with that. But right now we need somebody who understands the economy fundamentally."
Santorum, who campaigned in Louisiana on Sunday before returning to Illinois with a full schedule Monday, impugned Romney's oft-touted management skills. The former Pennsylvania senator seemed to indicate that his ability to stay in the race despite being outspent and out-organized is an indictment of Romney's leadership.
"The real question you should ask ... is Gov. Romney, why with tens and hundreds of millions of dollars hasn't he been able to do anything to get this nomination even close to cemented away?" Santorum said on CNN's "State of the Union."
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"That shows a real weakness in his ability to be able to govern."
The Illinois contest on Tuesday once again finds Romney campaigning heavily in a state that had once been thought of as simply another cog toward his inevitable march to the GOP nomination.
Instead, concerns over lackluster voter turnout and intensity of support for the former Massachusetts governor in the suburbs has made Illinois a question mark as Santorum has worked to energize tea party and religious conservatives throughout the state, especially outside the Chicago area.
In his appearances Sunday, Romney reset his focus on the economy by seeking to stoke voter anger toward rising gasoline prices. He blamed Obama, saying the president has opposed drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and blocked the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada.
He called three Obama-appointed Cabinet members _ Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson _ "the gas hike trio."
The candidate drew an overflow crowd to a Vernon Hills gym, where he talked up his victory in Puerto Rico's primary and jabbed at Obama's time in the Illinois Senate and state government's continued money problems.
"You see, if you're in business, you have no choice but to be a fiscal conservative. If you spend more money than you take in, you go broke. (Obama) was a legislator in Illinois, where I understand if you don't spend more money than you take in you don't get re-elected."
As Romney traveled, his campaign highlighted Santorum's backing of then-Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania for president in 1996. With Santorum on stage, Specter announced his bid by saying the GOP had strayed too far right, particularly in opposing abortion rights.
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Asked about the endorsement on ABC's "This Week," Santorum responded, "Look, you know, you work together as a team for the state of Pennsylvania, and I felt that Sen. Specter stood up and supported me when I was running in 1994, and I did likewise. I certainly knew Arlen Specter was going nowhere. I certainly disagreed with a lot of things that he said, and it was something I look back on and wish I hadn't done."
Santorum also responded to Romney's accusation that the former senator is an "economic lightweight."
"If Mitt Romney's an economic heavyweight, we're in trouble," Santorum said, citing Romney's tenure as governor of Massachusetts.
"This is a man who doesn't understand conservative principles. Conservatives don't go out there and say, 'I'm going to create jobs, and I'm going to change the economy; I'm going to manage the economy.' Just the opposite. What we believe in is getting government out of the way, creating opportunity and let the private sector do these things," Santorum said.
"This is Mitt Romney again, you know _ the CEO trying to go in and manage something," he said. "We don't need a manager."
On Monday, the two will campaign full time in Illinois. Romney holds a near 2-to-1 advantage nationally in convention nominating delegates, and 54 delegates are up for direct election Tuesday in Illinois. Santorum, however, failed to file slates in four congressional districts, so the maximum he could gain is 44.
Romney has events in Springfield, Ill., and Peoria, Ill., sandwiched around a noon-time economic address at the University of Chicago, the school where Illinois native Obama once served as a senior lecturer in the law department.
Santorum will traverse Rockford, Ill., and Moline, two of the spots Romney hit on Sunday. He also heads to Dixon, Ill., the boyhood home of President Ronald Reagan, before winding up the campaign day in East Peoria.
