Romney finds himself the target

The Republican infighting keeps going and going.

Mitt Romney took a slap at Alaska Governor Sarah Palin earlier this month with a snarky response to her inclusion on Time magazine's list of the most influential people in the world (a list he didn't quite make): “I think there are a lot more influential Republicans than that would suggest. But was that the issue on the most beautiful people or the most influential people?”

Some Palin backers hit back with a web video making fun of Romney, a potential rival in the 2012 Republican presidential sweepstakes.

Entitled "There's a Bore in the Woods," it shows a fearsome bear and suggests Romney is running away by using a speeded-up version of the former Massachusetts governor's campaign ad last year of him jogging near his summer home in New Hampshire. The video, spotted by the Huffington Post, ends with Palin firing a hunting rifle and a bear's head on her trophy wall.

Romney, meanwhile, also found himself the target of Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele.

The excitable, media-magnet Steele was guest-hosting on former Education Secretary Bill Bennett's radio show on Friday when a caller suggested that Romney would have been a stronger nominee last year than John McCain.

"Remember, it was the base that rejected Mitt because of his switch on pro-life, from pro-choice to pro-life," Steele told the caller. "It was the base that rejected Mitt because it had issues with Mormonism. It was the base that rejected Mitt because they thought he was back and forth and waffling on those very economic issues you're talking about."

Romney's camp responded today by noting that he won the Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll three years in a row. Romney also became one of McCain's most loyal and vocal surrogates.

"Sometimes when you shoot from the hip, you miss the target," Romney spokesman Eric Ferhnstrom told CNN. "This is one of those times."