With polls showing Mitt Romney in a dead heat with Rick Santorum with voting underway in Michigan and Arizona, Romney said Tuesday that he and his three rivals in the race for the GOP presidential nomination would not allow a brokered convention to happen.
“I don’t think there’s any prospect of a brokered convention,” he said on Fox News’ Your World with Neil Cavuto. “I can’t imagine the four candidates saying after a long process of fundraising and campaigning of one to two years, that we’re all going to step aside and give the nomination to someone else,” he said. He later added: “That’s just not going to happen.”
He also denied having any sort of deal with Rep. Ron Paul of Texas to refrain from attacking one another. “No one’s going to tell Ron Paul what to say” he said. “This is a guy who says whatever he wants to say.”
Host Neil Cavuto interrupted to say, “Not against you. For some reason, not against you.”
“Well, you know we like each other,” Romney said. “We’ve seen each other on the trail, we’ve introduced our wives to one another … I think in the case of Senator Santorum, he and I see him in the same light – which is, he portrays himself one way and his voting record is very different.”
Finally, Romney addressed comments he made earlier in the day that he was not going to “light my hair on fire” to attract conservative voters. “There have been some candidates in this race who have said some things that are, I think, over the top,” he said. “I think you have to display some degree of reason as you’re dealing with the issues that we face today.”
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