Santorum: Romney and Paul Made Secret Deal

Rick Santorum: conspiracy theorist? The Republican candidate suggested today that Mitt Romney has already picked Ron Paul as his VP candidate in a back-room deal, CBS News reports. At a Tea Party rally in Michigan, Santorum noted how Romney and Paul seemed to gang up on him at the GOP debate in Arizona this week: "Yeah, look, I didn't know we picked president and vice president before the election."

"The coordination that I felt at that debate was pretty clear," he added. "I felt like messages were being slipped behind my chair. It's pretty remarkable that in 20 debates, Ron Paul never attacked Mitt Romney." This wasn't Santorum's first accusation of collusion: Right after Wednesday's debate he said "their commercials look a lot alike, and so do their attacks." Paul has already denied the back-room deal, oddly by quoting Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty: "He said, 'If you think Ron Paul's going to do a backroom deal, you've got another thought coming,' something along those lines." (More Rick Santorum 2012 stories.)