Top Story Replay - The Olympics as a Political Football

This story was originally published Feb. 23.

(ATR) What’s believed to be a first – the Olympics enter the fray of a U.S. Presidential campaign – and come out a winner after the latest Republican debate.

The Olympics a winner?

While rivals maybash former Salt Lake City Olympics President Mitt Romney over hisboast that "I saved the Olympics", the two other leading candidatesfor the Republican presidential nomination say the Olympics deserve federal support.

Romney regularly invokes his connection to the 2002 Games in his campaign for the presidency. But for the first time in 21 debates among the GOP contenders, the Feb. 22 encounter held in Arizona included more than Romney’s chest thumping.

Romney lashed out at criticism from rival Rick Santorum, who in recent weeks has taken Romney to task for seeking hundreds of millions in federal "earmarks" to help pay for transport and security needs at the Games. Santorum says it was hypocritical for Romney to seek that cash 10 years ago and now decry the earmark process.

During the debate, airing nationally on CNN, Romney defended what he did – at the same time calling for the end of earmarks doled out by the Congress.

"The earmark process is broken," Romney began.

"You mentioned the Olympics, coming to the United States Congress and asking for support. No question about it. That’s the nature of what it is when you lead an organization or state.

"You come to Congress and say these are the things we need. In the history of the Olympic Movement the federal government has always provided the transportation and security. So we came to the federal government asking for help with transportation and security. I was fighting for those things.

"Our games were successful. But while I was fighting to save the Olympics you were fighting to save the Bridge to Nowhere," Romney said to Santorum, drawing hearty applause from the audience.

The reference is to a notorious $400 million bridge project in Alaska that would serve an airport and 50 residents. The project was kept alive by congressional earmarks until it was killed.

But while Santorum may have supported the controversial bridge when he was a U.S. Senator a decade ago, he also admitted votingfor Salt Lake City’s federal aid for the Games.

"Why was money sent to Governor Romney to secure the Olympics a bad earmark?" moderator John King asked Santorum.

"I didn’t suggest it was a bad earmark. I voted for it, a little over half the money that went to the Salt Lake City Games," Santorum responded, but accused Romney of being disingenuous with the earmark issue today.

"But Governor Romney asked for that money. That’s really the point. He’s out there on television now, unfortunately attacking me for saying I’m this great earmarker when he not only asked for earmarks for the Salt Lake Olympics in the order of tens of millions of dollars. Sought this earmark and used them," saidSantorum.

Candidate Newt Gingrich also dipped his toe into the Olympic pool at this most recent debate, joining Santorum in calling out Romney for taking earmarks for the Games and blasting the process now.

But Gingrich, who was Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives at the time of the Atlanta Olympics (and elected from an Atlanta suburb) noted he also believes in federal support for the Games, even sounding Romney-esque.

"I helped the Atlanta Olympics to be successful. I think it is totally appropriate to support the Olympics," he said recalling the hundreds of millions he helped direct to Atlanta for the Olympics.

"I actually went to [the governor of Utah] and sat down with the people originally planning the Winter Olympics. I said look, this is what we did, this is what you need to do. I think it was totally appropriate for you to ask for what you got," he said about the aid Romney sought for Salt Lake City.

"I just think it’s kind of silly for you to turn around and run an ad attacking somebody for getting what you got and then claiming what you got wasn’t what they got, because what [the Olympics] got was right and what they got was wrong".

Of the four GOP candidates at the Arizona debate, only Ron Paul did not weigh-in on the Olympics.

Reported by Ed Hula.

20 Years at #1: Your best source of news about the Olympics is AroundTheRings.com, for subscribers only.