Rick Santorum offers Orwellian ad against Romney

Rick Santorum is out with a new, Orwellian ad casting rival Mitt Romney as the candidate of an establishment that wants mindless Republicans to "fall in line."

The spot, reminiscent of this anti-Hillary Clinton spot from 2007 (which wasn't authorized by the Obama campaign), calls to mind Apple's iconic "1984" ad by portraying a rival as the symbol of mindless followers of the establishment.

In the Santorum spot, a narrator says the GOP establishment wants Republicans to "vote for their backroom, hand-picked moderate candidate," as a man is shown barking orders at a group of blank-faced, marching people through a megaphone.

The narrator says the establishment is "telling us to simply ignore the fact that Romney supported the Wall Street bailout. Ignore that Romneycare includes taxpayer funding of abortions. We should simply forget that Mitt Romney once bragged he's even more liberal on social issues then Ted Kennedy."

As blindfolded Americans are shown literally walking off a cliff, he continues: "In fact, we should simply follow them blindly. Just like we did last time. Over a cliff."

Suddenly, a woman in bright pink emerges on the scene with a Rick Santorum placard as the narrator says, "not again." The spot then shows Santorum making his case as the people who had been trudging off the cliff stop and watch.

"Let's unite behind a candidate who not only shares our conservative values, but can beat Obama," the narrator says. "Rick Santorum for President. Join the fight."

The Santorum campaign did not immediately respond to an email concerning when the ad will run, but ABC News reports it will go up in South Carolina tomorrow, in both 60- and 90-second versions.

Asked about negative campaign ads Wednesday morning, Santorum said, "I've run more positive ads than anyone else in this campaign." He added that the other candidates and their super PACs "go out and just play scorched earth."

Santorum added that South Carolinians can decide "whether they want someone who has a positive uplifting view of how we do in the Republican Party to bring us together as conservatives...or do we want someone who thinks they need to win the Republican primary not because they can't talk about their own record, they have to distort or in many cases outright lie about the records of everyone else."

A new CNN/Time/ORC International poll of likely South Carolina Republican primary voters, meanwhile, shows Mitt Romney leading Newt Gingrich 33 percent to 23 percent, followed by Santorum at 16 percent and Ron Paul at 13 percent.