Santorum super PAC ad likens Romney to Obama: ‘More of the same’

The top super PAC supporting Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign is up with a new ad in Illinois suggesting that Mitt Romney and President Obama are basically the same.

The Red, White and Blue Fund ad rehashes Romney’s record as governor of Massachusetts and concludes, “More debt and taxes, less jobs. More of the same.”

As the ad progresses, the camera scans different parts of a picture of Romney’s face, eventually revealing a picture of Obama right beside his.

The ad is one of the strongest attack ads to date in the race and reinforces a burgeoning line of attack on Romney — that he’s not that much different than Obama.

Santorum’s campaign, which cannot coordinate with the super PAC, has also increasingly compared Romney to Obama. Santorum has called Romney’s health-care bill “Obamacare Lite,” and top Santorum adviser John Brabender this week called Romney “Barack Obama Lite.”

Update 10:56 a.m.: Romney’s spokeswoman Andrea Saul responds: “Rick Santorum’s only experience with budgets is to vote to increase spending, raise the debt ceiling and increase his own pay. Mitt Romney has spent his career balancing budgets, both in private business and in government. As governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney balanced the budget every year he was in office – and left behind a more than $2 billion cash reserve.”