The Santorum campaign is pointing out today a particular fundraiser attended by Mitt Romney.

Verona, PA – This afternoon former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney returned to his Wall Street roots to raise money after his campaign’s defeat yesterday in Alabama and Mississippi. Among those hosting the event are former executives with AIG and Goldman Sachs, recipients of billions of dollars in taxpayer bailout money that Romney advocated for.

Hogan Gidley, National Communications Director, said: “Mitt Romney proudly supported the Wall Street Bailout that rewarded the reckless behavior of Wall Street Insiders – at the expense of the American taxpayer.  Now that his campaign is looking to get some fast cash – he returned to the very people who benefited from the bailout – that Romney supported.”

I was able to find two articles about this fundraiser. One at AlterNet and another at Think Progress.

Rick Santorum is unique in that he is a genuine conservative Republican, not a libertarian and not a leftist. Libertarians will argue that “moral issues don’t matter” and that what really matters is the dollar, the economy, and how much money someone can make. In other words, like the libertarian heroine Ayn Rand, they are pure capitalists. The Left, on the other hand, would argue that being wealthy is, in and of itself, “unfair” to others, but they utterly reject traditional moral values. Leftist media is highlighting Romney’s fundraisers on Wall Street simply because of the wealth involved, but their reasoning and arguments are different from Rick Santorum’s. For Santorum, what’s wrong here is that Romney supported bailouts and is now reaping big dollar campaign contributions from those who benefited from those bailouts.

Republicans like Rick Santorum combine moral principles with free market capitalism. It is morally wrong to make the dollar almighty, placing capitalism above the common good, and it is morally wrong to resent wealth and to claim that the common good requires us to practice wealth redistribution. If capitalism trumps moral values, of course you will see no problem with bailing out your billionaire friends on Wall Street, but traditional conservative Republicans see the immorality of bailing out people whose businesses have failed.

Rick Santorum is criticized for being the “family values” candidate but it is precisely moral character that causes him to oppose all bailouts and it is this character that is still shared by the majority of the American people. This holds true not just for the Wall Street bailout but also for the auto bailout.

Republicans are more likely to oppose the auto bailout, with 73 percent saying the government should not have helped the automakers, bolstering Romney’s position as he seeks the GOP nomination. Democrats are split: A slim 51 percent majority say the government should have helped, and 42 percent say it should not have.

Independents tilt against the bailout, with 55 percent saying the automakers should have been allowed to succeed or fail on their own. Just 35 percent of independents say the government should have helped.

[Update: The article I quoted says "bolstering Romney's position" but this claim ignores Romney's support for the Wall Street bailout.]

It is this sense of morality that is still alive in the hearts of the American people and that Rick Santorum has been inspiring out on the campaign trail to restore Americans’ belief in the values that made us great.