Romney Super PAC Hits Santorum Online in Michigan

Super PAC Restore Our Future is betting big online in hopes of toppling Rick Santorum in the Michigan primary today. In fact, the pro-Mitt Romney group has spent more than $600,000 on online advertising since last week to attack the former Pennsylvania senator in upcoming Republican primaries. Polls show the two candidates in a dead heat in Michigan, which many consider a must-win for Romney.

A Google search for Rick Santorum turns up ads for RickFacts.com, a site that promises to expose the truth about Santorum’s record in the senate. The site features Restore Our Future television ads running in Michigan and Arizona leading into today’s GOP primaries in those states, as well as ads seen in other key states holding primaries in the coming weeks.

The organization is supporting its TV buys with significant online ad campaigns in the same markets. Restore Our Future spent around $720,000 last week on online advertising with Arena Communications to target Santorum in Alabama, Michigan, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Ohio, and Tennessee, and to go after Newt Gingrich in his home state of Georgia.

To hit Santorum in Michigan – the state where Romney grew up and his father served as governor – Restore Our Future bought around $187,000 worth of web ads last week, according to Federal Election Commission reports.

RickFacts.com takes aim at Santorum for voting to raise the debt ceiling while in congress, and for siding with Hillary Clinton on a failed measure that would have allowed felons to vote once their time was served.

Similar ads from Restore Our Future attacking Newt Gingrich target voters in Georgia, the former House speaker’s home state. The ads link to NewtFacts.com, and claim, “Gingrich is not Reagan,” alluding to Gingrich’s self-labeling as a “Reagan Republican.” The site features a TV ad showing footage of Gingrich stating that Reagan “is clearly failing.”