Santorum Campaign Deceptively Edits Romney 2009 Newsweek Op-Ed

Did they deceptively edit, or just not read the entire article?

Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s campaign blasted out a press release Thursday, linking a Romney 2009 op-ed written in Newsweek Magazine. The op-ed, written by Romney in May of 2009, was edited to suggest that Romney supported a federal individual mandate. One problem, the release fails to show that Romney specifically proposed “center[ing] reforms at the state level. Open the door to state plans designed to meet the various needs of their citizens. Before imposing a one-size-fits-all federal program, let the states serve as “the laboratories of democracy.”

The Santorum does not need to go far to find examples of Romney supporting an individual mandate on a federal level. BuzzFeed recently noticed on a 2009 USA Today op-ed where Mitt Romney urged President Obama to follow the reforms he put into place in Massachusetts. Romney also urged Congressional Republicans to follow his Massachusetts plan in a January 2009 speech on retreat in Virginia.