Three pieces of advice Romney should ignore

Don’t stop attacking! Having witnessed the way Romney pulverized Newt Gingrich with attack ads in Iowa and then again in Florida, Santorum is trying to turn Romney’s negative tactics back against him. It’s true that Romney’s unfavorables have shot up, one natural side effect of negative campaigning (though there are other potential explanations as well). But once he’s dispatched his last serious rival, he can recover with a stretch of relentless positivity. And there’s good reason to think harsh advertising can save him again. Santorum may lack Gingrich’s operatic liabilities. But his record is less pure than many Republicans must assume. Santorum was rarely criticized in the debates, after all, and has never been the target of a sustained negative ad campaign. He’s also a former Senator, and Senators make for especially fat targets, with their long voting records that are far easier to lampoon than to defend. (For instance, Romney is now ripping Santorum for repeatedly voting to raise the debt limit, something Congress did routinely for years; never mind that Romney himself almost certainly would have wound up doing the same thing if he’d beaten Ted Kennedy in 1994.) And a little damage will go a long way. Romney trails Santorum by only a few points nationally but by perhaps 10 points in the new showdown state of Michigan. Gingrich was at least as strong at his peak. Rombo should use his financial advantage to blast away; he’s sure to damage Santorum far more than himself. And if that doesn’t work, well, don’t ask my advice …