she wasn't going to back down from her push for job-creation policies.

"This is a tough game," she explained. "You can't be intimidated. You can't be frightened. And as far as I'm concerned -- the tea party can go straight to hell."

"She's a caricature of what's wrong with Congress," Santorum told conservative radio host Steve Malzberg. "She's vile. She's always been that way, and she's just one of these real, real nasty, you know, anti-basic traditional, fundamental values of this country."

"This is the left in America. They absolutely despise, you know, the founding principles of this country, that believes in free people, that believes in limited government. She is someone who believes she should control what's going on in America, that she knows best, and that people that stand by constitutional principles of limited government are folks who are to be condemned."