With the Michigan GOP Primary quickly approaching on Feb. 28, Mitt Romney and his backers at the Super PAC Restore Our Future are gearing up to quash sudden front-runner Rick Santorum.

Just as Newt Gingrich felt the fury of Romney’s well-funded campaign after his surprising win in South Carolina, Santorum can expect a barrage of critical ads following his Feb. 7 sweep of Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri.

That Santorum is leading in a set of recent polls also has the Romney campaign on the attack, and Michigan is already seeing ads funded by Restore Our Future that seek to frame Santorum as a big-government spender, the New York Times reports.

Santorum’s response?

“Rombo,” a comical 30-second spot featuring a Romney lookalike running around with a mud-spattering machine gun that fires on a cardboard cutout of Santorum. Decrying Romney’s millions spent on tarnishing fellow Republicans as a tactic to distract from his Massachusetts “Romneycare,” the ad ends with Mitt getting hit with a muddy backfire.

Whether Santorum’s strategy of attacking Romney’s attack ads to make up for his underfunded campaign will work has yet to be seen.

But with much on the line – pundits see winning Michigan, where Romney grew up and his dad served as governor, as a must for the now-trailing candidate – voters can expect to see plenty more mudslinging over the next few weeks.