Santorum hits Romney over voting rights attack ads

Romney eventually relented, saying that he didn’t believe “people who have committed violent crimes should be allowed to vote again.”

Santorum immediately pounced, clearly hoping to land a counterpunch to the pro-Romney attack ad.

“That’s very interesting you should say that, because in the state of Massachusetts when you were governor, not only could violent felons vote after they exhausted their sentences, they could when.. on parole, which was a more liberal position,” Santorum said.

“If in fact you felt so passionately about this… then why didn’t you try to change this when you were governor?” Santorum added.

Romney again emphasized that the attack ad was “completely out of the control of candidates.”

But Santorum pushed the issue, noting “what the governor’s saying is that he didn’t propose it” and urging Romney to disavow the negative ads.

“I would say to them, stop it, that you’re representing me,” Santorum said.