NOVI – The two Republican candidates going toe-to-toe to win Michigan’s presidential primary, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, swept through the state Thursday talking about their plans to improve the nation’s economy, with their campaigns throwing jabs at the other as polls continued to show Santorum leading, albeit narrowly.

Santorum went after Romney as he delivered remarks to the Detroit Economic Club in Detroit, calling Romney out for supporting the bailout begun by President George W. Bush of the nation’s banks in 2008, but not the bailout of General Motors and Chrysler. Santorum said he opposed both bailouts. Later, at the Oakland County Republican Party Lincoln Day dinner, he focused his criticism on President Barack Obama.

Romney, at a roundtable on jobs in Monroe and then in a Farmington Hills speech to local chambers of commerce, did not criticize Santorum, instead training his fire on Obama. However, the Romney campaign arranged a conference call featuring two Michigan supporters, former Attorney General Mike Cox and former Rep. Rocky Raczkowski, who said Santorum has no executive experience and would pale as a leader in comparison to Romney.

“Both campaigns are executing well. Santorum went into Romney’s stronghold, talked about the economy on his home turf, and I think he got a good response,” said Republican political consultant Stu Sandler of Decider Strategies. “Romney I thought had a very strong day. Coming out with the governor’s endorsement, Rick Snyder, who obviously has a record of accomplishment in this state. Both are businessmen and I think Rick Snyder is popular with the Republican base, and Romney talked about the economy in his stronghold, southeast Michigan.”

That both sides are now spending significant money on television ads shows this will be a competitive race, Sandler said. However, he said he still sees an overall edge for Romney.

“I would still say the advantage is Romney in this state in terms of his financial resources, the elected officials campaigning for him, the grassroots, but Rick Santorum is prepared to run a strong campaign and is going to be competitive,” he said.

The latest poll on the race, commissioned by The Detroit News and WDIV-TV and conducted by Glengariff Group, showed Santorum at 34 percent, Romney at 30.4 percent, former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich at 11.6 percent and U.S. Rep. Ron Paul at 8.9 percent. The poll of 500 likely Republican primary voters has an error margin of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points, making it a statistical tie between Santorum and Romney. It was conducted between February 11-13 through live telephone interviews.

The RealClearPolitics.com average of the five polls conducted in recent days in Michigan shows Santorum with an 8.2 percentage point lead. Late Thursday night, Inside Michigan Politics released a new poll putting Romney and Santorum each at 33 percent with Gingrich and Paul both in single digits.

Meanwhile, Romney’s dominance of the airwaves is ending although he will still have a big edge.

The Red, White and Blue Fund, the super political action committee supportive of Santorum, announced it would buy $663,000 in ads in Michigan. Politico reported that the ads would begin Thursday night and run through Tuesday in the Detroit, Grand Rapids, Flint, Traverse City, Lansing and Marquette media markets with essentially the same number of ad spots everywhere but Marquette, which would have fewer. NBC reported that the Santorum campaign has now upped its ad purchases to $438,000 for the next two weeks.

The ad from Red, White and Blue talks up Santorum’s biography and closes by calling him a “proven conservative.” (Note: The ad below is the same as the one airing in Michigan except the voting date is different).

Still, between the Romney campaign and the Restore Our Future super PAC backing Romney, the Romney forces enjoy about a 3-to-1 spending advantage, according to NBC, although that is not as lopsided as it was just yesterday.

The two sides will resume their Michigan push in the coming days.

Friday, Santorum will appear for a recording of Michigan Public Television’s “Off the Record” in East Lansing and attend a rally organized by the Michigan Faith and Freedom Coalition in Macomb County. There was word late Thursday that he will attend the Lincoln Day dinner Saturday in Traverse City that will feature about a dozen county Republican parties. And then he will speak at Hillsdale College on Monday.

Romney is next scheduled to be back in the state to speak to the Detroit Economic Club on February 24.

“I am amazed it just seems like a few days ago we flipped the switch on this in Michigan,” said John Truscott of the Truscott Rossman public relations firm. “We are ground zero right now for the next two weeks.”

This story was provided by Gongwer News Service. To subscribe, click on Gongwer.Com

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