Gingrich camp starts calls hitting Santorum

MACON, GA -- For the first time this cycle, the Newt Gingrich campaign is directly targeting Rick Santorum to voters -- rolling out robo calls in two key Super Tuesday states against the former Pennsylvania senator.

In the next 24 hours, 150,000 households in Oklahoma and Tennessee will hear a female voice hitting Santorum on supporting “big labor.”

“On the campaign trail Rick Santorum talks a good game about his blue collar roots and about being for the average family,” the females says. “As senator from Pennsylvania, Santorum cozied up to the labor union bosses and voted for the AFL-CIO and against a national 'right to work' bill that would have let workers opt-out of paying union dues Union dues that hurt families and small businesses.”

“Rick Santorum -- friend of working families or the Union bosses pal? You decide,” the robo call ends.

This is the first paid “advertisement” focusing on a GOP opponent the Gingrich campaign has paid for since Florida. Gingrich is battling for his political life and sees his path back to the front of the pack through the Southern states. Santorum seems to be the Speaker’s biggest competition sown South.

Gingrich campaign spokesman, R.C. Hammond, said Santorum has a “Jimmy Hoffa problem.”

“Rick Santorum is the one who has to come to Georgia and explain why he tried to bury his big labor voting record in the end zone of this primary,” Hammond said.