LIVONIA, Mich. — A day before Michigan voters decide whether to give Mitt Romney a green light toward the Republican presidential nomination, Rick Santorum is doing his best to stall him, continuing to dismiss Mr. Romney as inadequate to the task of challenging President Obama in the fall.
Mr. Santorum, addressing about 300 people at a Chamber of Commerce breakfast here in this suburb northwest of Detroit, said Mr. Romney was “uniquely unqualified” to be the party’s nominee. The chief reason, he said, is that Mr. Romney, as governor of Massachusetts, produced a health care system similar to Mr. Obama’s, which is much despised among Republican primary voters.
“It’s the biggest issue in this race,” Mr. Santorum said. “It’s about government control of your life, forcing you to buy things then forcing their values on you and your religion, which, by the way, Governor Romney did in Catholic hospitals in Massachusetts by forcing them to distribute the morning-after pill. Why would we give those issues away in this general election?”
Mr. Romney, speaking to about 300 people on the floor of a manufacturing plant in Rockford that makes office electronics, upbraided Mr. Santorum for focusing more on social issues than on the economy.
“It’s time for him to really focus on the economy,” Mr. Romney said, adding that it was also time for voters to consider who has more experience.
“Senator Santorum’s a nice guy, but he’s never had a job in the private sector,” Mr. Romney said. “He’s worked as a lobbyist, he’s worked as an elected official, and that’s fine, but if the issue of the day is the economy, I think to create jobs it helps to have a guy as president who’s had a job, and I have.”
A primary will also be held Tuesday in Arizona, where polls show Mr. Romney with a comfortable lead. Michigan is considered more of a prize, in part because Mr. Romney grew up there and a loss to Mr. Santorum would be an embarrassing blow.
Analysts said the race appeared to be neck and neck in Michigan.
“Right now it’s a jump ball and it could go either way,” said Bill Ballenger, editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a political newsletter. Momentum that had been building for Mr. Romney in the last 48 hours, he said, has appeared to shift to Mr. Santorum.
Mr. Santorum has spent a great deal of his time on the campaign trail recently talking about social issues, partly because he believes they are intertwined with the economy and with freedom in all aspects of life, from the practice of religion to government spending.
“Freedom to worship is not just what you do in the sanctuary, it’s how you practice your faith outside of the sanctuary,” he said. “At least in the America that I grew up in, that used to be around, that was freedom of religion. All the reporters in the back will go, ‘Oh, there’s Santorum talking about social issues.’ No, I’m talking about freedom! This is an election about freedom. It’s about whether you buy into government can do things better for you than you can do for yourself. I don’t buy into that.”
Still, he addressed the economy Monday more than he usually does, and after hearing that Mr. Romney had poked him for having failed to focus on it before, Mr. Santorum tartly told reporters, “Tell him to read my speech.”
He spent time casting himself as consistent and authentic, two qualities that polls suggest voters find lacking in Mr. Romney, and he suggested Mr. Romney’s economic plan consisted of tweaks on the margins.
Mr. Santorum said he was “someone who can take and wage a battle on ideas, not by beating up your opponent or outspending them 10-to-1.” He said he was offering not “some minor change, not some reshuffling of the deck chairs but a real fundamental change in the size and scale of government, the role of government in your lives and the role of government in the business community.”
He said he was “looking forward to hopefully a great night tomorrow,” and described himself as “someone running for president who actually doesn’t want to run for president because they want to be the most powerful person in the world. They want to run for president because they want to turn the power in this country back to the American people.”
Mr. Romney, at his event, took note that Mr. Santorum had laid out his economic and tax proposal in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal and said he was glad to see it.
“I’m glad he recognizes this has got to be a campaign about the economy,” Mr. Romney said. “It’s time for him to really focus on the economy — and for you to all say, ‘Okay, if the economy’s going to be the issue we focus on, who has the experience to actually get this economy going again?’ ”
While he campaigned in conservative western Michigan, Mr. Romney made no reference to abortion or religious liberty, which were themes both men campaigned on last week.
“We need dramatic change, fundamental change in Washington,” Mr. Romney said. “We can’t just keep on going down the road we’re on — more and more programs, spending more and more money that we don’t have. We have to say we’re going to dramatically change the structure of Washington.”
Referring to Mr. Santorum, Mr. Romney added, “That’s not going to happen by someone who is a creature of Washington, someone who’s spent their life in Washington.”
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