Poor Rick Santorum. Wednesday night’s Republican Presidential debate was his moment—his opportunity to solidify his standing, maybe even gain some ground on Mitt Romney. But almost as soon as the debate began, it was clear that he had no chance, that it wasn’t even a fair fight. Santorum had to stand on his own; Romney had an important if unlikely ally right there on stage with him in the form of Ron Paul.

The debate wasn’t the first time that the friendship—one might go so far as to say alliance, for indeed that is what it has seemed to be recently—between Romney and Paul has been evident. Indeed, Paul has been doing Romney’s work for him all week. On Monday, Paul’s campaign released an anti-Santorum ad that prompted NBC’s Chuck Todd to ask, “Just what has Mitt Romney promised Ron Paul?” (The spot was noteworthy enough that it’s also our Political Ad of the Week; you can see my take on it over on Political Scene, our hub for campaign coverage.) Still, the link between the two men hasn’t ever been quite as open and obvious as it was during the debate.

Paul’s ad, which questions Santorum’s credentials as a fiscal conservative, hits him on several specific points: “Santorum voted to raise the debt ceiling five times, doubled the size of the Department of Education, then supported the biggest entitlement expansion since the sixties,” the spot’s narrator says, continuing, “Santorum voted to send billions of our tax dollars to dictators in North Korea in Egypt and even hooked Planned Parenthood up with a few million bucks.” In Romney’s answer to the first real question of the debate, he brought up a remarkably similar list:

Well I’m looking at his historic record, which [includes] voting for raising the debt ceiling five different times without voting for compensating cuts. Voting to keep in place Davis-Bacon, which cost about $100 billion over—over ten years. A whole series of votes. Voting to fund Planned Parenthood, to expand the Department of Education.

It’s hard to believe that this is totally coincidental, especially when you factor in the Planned Parenthood bit. (If you believe that Rick Santorum personally “hooked Planned Parenthood up with a few million bucks,” and that this isn’t a case of picking a small bit of funding out of the context of a much larger bill in order to create an easy attack, I have a bridge or two I’d like to talk with you about.)

Besides, Paul spent a decent amount of time during the debate running interference for Romney against Santorum—and doing a damn good job of it, too. Asked by moderator John King, “You have a new television ad that labels [Santorum] a fake. Why?” Paul coolly responded, “Because he’s a fake,” before adding, “I find it really fascinating that, when people are running for office, they’re really fiscally conservative. When they’re in office, they do something different. And then when they explain themselves, they say, ‘Oh, I want to repeal that.’”

Later, after the candidates got a question about No Child Left Behind, Paul spent only a moment on his own position before moving on to Santorum:

The Constitution is very, very clear. There is no authority for the federal government to be involved in education. There’s no—no prohibition in the Constitution for the states to be involved in education. That’s not a bad position and we can sort things out. But once again, the Senator was for No Child Left Behind, but now he’s running for President, now he’s running to repeal No Child Left Behind. But—and he calls it a team sport. He has to go along to get along, and that’s the way the team plays. But that’s what the problem is with Washington. That’s what’s been going on for so long. So, I don’t accept that form of government. I understand it. That is the way it works. You were with the majority…. You organized and got these votes all passed. But I think the obligation of all of us should be the oath of office…. I’m sorry about that, but it isn’t the oath to the party, it’s the oath to our office.

It’s evident, after answers like that one, that if this debate slows Santorum’s momentum, or helps Romney slow him, then Romney will have a lot of reasons to be grateful to Ron Paul. The only question that remains is how Romney might show his gratitude.

Photograph by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.