Romney call raises McCain temper as issue

boston.com

MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. -- Mitt Romney's campaign is blasting out automated phone calls that feature a recording of former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania raising questions about John McCain's "temperament" -- a hot-button issue that Romney himself has assiduously avoided.

Santorum said in an interview today that he wrote the script himself, and the campaign deferred to him and approved it.

"John McCain has written about and talked about the issues that he has with respect to his temperament and his ability to work with other people and to do so in a way that's productive," Santorum said in an interview after stumping for Romney at Dave & Buster's restaurant.

"This is not something he hasn't spoken about and talked about and admitted to and I think that to me it is a relevant issue for people to consider…I think it's one without question that factors into his ability to govern, to form coalitions and to get things done."

But Romney had insisted as recently as last week that he would not make an issue of McCain's temperament, which some critics have said tends toward the hot-tempered and angry.

"I think the contrast that I'll seek to draw is, as in the past, we disagree on a number of issues, I'll talk about those issue
differences," Romney told reporters on Thursday in Fountain Valley, Calif. "We have very different backgrounds in terms of our life experience but I'm not going to be talking about personality matters"

Santorum said he had personally witnessed problems with McCain's temperament, which he declined to detail.

"I don't know anybody in the Senate who hasn't," Santorum said. "Everybody has their McCain story."