Santorum Plays Down Disagreement With Specter Rick Santorum on Friday sought to play down a disagreement with Arlen Specter, his former Senate colleague, over conversations the two men had years ago. Mr. Santorum asserted in Wednesday night's debate that he supported Mr. Specter's re-election bid in 2004 in return for a promise that Mr. Specter, who was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time, would support President George W. Bush's nominees to the Supreme Court. "We had a conversation," Mr. Santorum said of Mr. Specter. Now, he asked me to support him. I said, "Will you support the president's nominees? We had a 51-49 majority in the Senate. He said, "I'll support the president's nominees as chairman." Mr. Specter - a liberal Republican who later became a Democrat - quickly disputed Mr. Santorum's account. "That is flatly not true," Mr. Specter said on MSNBC's "The Daily Rundown" on Friday morning. We never had any such conversation. It would be improper to make a commitment on a vote before I knew who the nominee was and whether I thought the nominee was qualified. I've got a very strong reputation and a record behind it not to make deals like that. In response, Mr. Santorum insisted Friday that the conversation had taken place, but backed away from the idea that there had been a direct quid pro quo. "We actually had that conversation at the end of his campaign, when he asked me to go out and do an ad to help him," Mr. Santorum said on Laura Ingraham's radio talk show on Friday morning. " "Arlen," I said, "I need assurances that, you know, if you win this election, you're going to stand up and fight as chairman of the committee." " Mr. Santorum added: "He said, "As long as I'm consulted as chairman of the Judiciary Committee. That's my responsibility as chairman of the committee to do that. That's what he said. That was a slightly different representation than he offered during the debate, and it matched up better with the account of Mr. Specter, who acknowledged having more general conversations with Mr. Santorum about the issue of appointees. A spokeswoman for Mr. Santorum did not respond to an e-mail requesting comment. For Mr. Santorum, the changing accounts of the conversation with Mr.Specter creates two problems. First, it provides an opening for Mitt Romney's campaign to raise questions about Mr. Santorum's veracity. If Mr. Specter, who is no longer a senator, is telling the truth, then Mr. Santorum was not telling the truth during a nationally televised debate. Second, it allows Mr. Romney to press the issue of Mr. Santorum's support for Mr. Specter. If there was no agreement on judges, then why did Mr. Santorum - a conservative - support Mr. Specter, a well-known moderate at the time. That's exactly the issue that Mr. Romney's campaign raises in a Web video they released this week. "If Rick Santorum couldn't say no to liberal Arlen Specter, can you really trust him to change Washington?" the announcer says.