Rick Santorum, Looking at Michigan and Ohio, Slams Obama on Jobs

Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum ripped into President Barack Obama on Monday, responding to the Democrat incumbents calls for more manufacturing and industrial jobs in America.

"It was ironic that President Obama would make his call to renew American manufacturing from a Boeing plant, considering his administration's moves to keep Boeing from expanding and creating thousands of jobs in South Carolina, Santorum said in a statement on Monday. Time and time again, this president has crushed American industry by doing the bidding of his cronies in Big Labor and adhering to the agenda of the radical environmental left. In fact, President Obama has effectively placed a boot on the neck of American industry with his environmental regulations and taxes that make us less competitive with the rest of the world.

We need a president who understands that the private sector creates jobs, not the government," Santorum added. We need to encourage manufacturing -- which is exactly why my economic plan focuses on that sector of our economy. But I take a far different approach than President Obama -- I focus on empowering business from the bottom up, not the government-knows-best top-down approach. We need to free American enterprise, America's entrepreneurial spirit, and American industry to grow; and this president is doing the exact opposite.

As president, I commit to standing up for manufacturing by completely eliminating the corporate tax for manufacturers and repealing the Obama administration's onerous regulations, Santorum said in conclusion. For years, we've heard that manufacturing jobs are gone for good -- but I know that's not true, and I'm not willing to surrender these jobs to China as quickly as this presidents is. If we can create a level playing field, I know with all my heart that the American worker will outperform anyone else in the world."

Santorum is clearly looking for a big boost in the Great Lakes states with their focus on manufacturing jobs. The former senator from Pennsylvania leads Mitt Romney in polls of Michigan, which holds its primary on Feb. 28, and Ohio which holds its primary on March 6. But there could be more here. Santorum now beats Romney in the national polls. As his odds for winning the Republican nomination increase, Santorum could be taking notes for the general election, seeing what attacks work against the president. Is Santorum an underdog to defeat Romney? Yes. But the conventional wisdom held that he would be out of the race by now.