Santorum targets Romney, Perry and Cain with new ad

Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign takes on all three of the GOP’s leading candidates in a new radio ad set to run in Iowa.

The former Pennsylvania senator’s ad, which was produced by top GOP ad firm BrabenderCox and obtained in advance by The Fix, hits Mitt Romney for “his government-run Romneycare,” says Rick Perry is “dead wrong” on giving in-state tuition to the children of illegal immigrants, and accuses Herman Cain of “strongly” supporting “the Wall Street bailouts.”

Santorum then makes the case that he would be best to take on President Obama .

“If there’s anything we’ve learned from his failed presidency, it’s that experience matters,” Santorum says, before talking about his work on banning late-term abortion, foreign policy and welfare reform.

The ad, on which the campaign is spending about $30,000, is just the latest example of the 2012 GOP presidential primary becoming more rough-and-tumble, with the candidates beginning to attack each other more and more directly. They will meet Tuesday night in a debate being sponsored by The Washington Post and Bloomberg TV.

Santorum, perhaps more than any candidate, hasn’t been shy about going after his opponents. With his comments this weekend and his ad, he effectively becomes the first major candidate to attack Cain, who is moving up in the polls.

Santorum is running an insurgent, grassroots campaign, in large part because he has struggled to raise funds, and he acknowledged this weekend that his fundraising in the third quarter wasn’t much better than the $582,000 he raised in the second quarter.