In a campaign speech Monday, Rick Santorum took advantage of a newly rediscovered op-ed from Mitt Romney to finally give him a harder time on his Massachusetts health care law. But Santorum probably would have benefited from making the case earlier. Early Monday, Buzzfeed's Andrew Kaczynski put together several Romney TV appearances and a 2009 USA Today op-ed Romney wrote in which he advocates using the individual mandate in the Massachusetts health care law on the national level. New York Magazine's Jonathan Chait then assembled several statements by Romney from this season's debates in which the candidate claims he never wanted Massachusetts health care to serve as a national model. Chait marvels, "The remarkable thing is that none of Romney’s opponents challenged these demonstrably false claims. If you check the transcripts of the debates, Romney simply lies about what he advocated, and then everybody lets it go." As if on cue, Santorum in a speech today took advantage of the new info, saying:

"Now we have him caught on tape ... It's bad enough to be for a government mandated health care system, which he clearly was in Massachusetts, but to then say, 'Oh, I never recommended it to the president.' Now we have two or three instances where he clearly did."

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