FOXNews.com: Santorum: Beware Another McCain

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Santorum: Beware Another McCain Apr 1st 2012, 15:47 Rick Santorum, making his case for why he should stay in the uphill race against Mitt Romney, said Sunday that Republicans must not repeat the mistake of 2008 and prematurely nominate someone who can't win in November.  Though Romney argues he's by far the toughest competitor to go up against President Obama, Santorum compared Romney to Sen. John McCain in 2008.  He said Obama and Hillary Clinton battled into the summer, resulting in the "best candidate" for the Democrats, while Republicans decided, "We've got to wrap this thing up" and picked McCain as their nominee.  "We came up with someone who ... wasn't able to win," Santorum said on "Fox News Sunday." "We don't need to repeat that again. We don't need to bail out and not have the best candidate to take Barack Obama on in the fall." Santorum defended his candidacy as Romney not only builds his delegate lead but picks up important Republican endorsements -- including most recently from Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and former President George H.W. Bush. Wisconsin freshman Sen. Ron Johnson also endorsed Romney Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." Polls show Romney holding onto a steady lead in Wisconsin, ahead of that state's primary on Tuesday. Maryland and the District of Columbia are also voting.  Romney on Saturday predicted a win in Wisconsin, though he said he doesn't want to "count the delegates before they hatch."  Santorum, though, said Sunday he would "absolutely" stay in the race even if he doesn't win that primary. He dismissed Romney's recent support, since "he has all of the establishment behind him."  The former Pennsylvania senator predicted he'd do "exceptionally well" in the Pennsylvania primary later this month, as well as a string of contests slated for May. Santorum, who bills himself as the true conservative in the race, warned that Republicans nominate a "moderate" as their nominee at their own risk.  Still, Santorum neglected to mention that in 2008, Romney was seen as one of the strongest alternatives to McCain in that presidential nominating contest.  Asked about that detail Sunday after the interview, Santorum said: "I'm saying that, you know, we settled on a candidate who wasn't a strong candidate in 2008, and obviously we had a field out there ... But I think in this race, the good thing about this race is that we've had some conservative alternatives to the establishment candidates. We didn't really have very good ones the last time around. And at least the ones I thought maybe would have been good alternatives didn't last very long."

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