A/V: Santorum Stumps in Cincinnati Suburbs

(NOTE: this was the first of two events that I covered on March 3rd. Due to delays caused by this reporter being 'under the weather' from Saturday evening until today, I am now just finishing the early one and will post the later one as time and scheduling permits.)

Former US Senator Rick Santorum addresses an enthusiastic group of supporters at a rally Saturday morning in Blue Ash, Ohio.

In an attempt to shore up support in the remaining days leading up to next Tuesday's Ohio presidential primary, former US senator and current Republican candidate Rick Santorum attended a series of campaign events across the state yesterday to get his message out to his supporters as well as undecided voters.  Recent polling shows Santorum and his main rival, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, in a very close race for winning the popular vote and a majority of Ohio's 66 delegates to this summer's Republican National Convention.

Cincinnati native Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, speaks to gathered crowd at the Santorum rally in Blue Ash, Ohio on Saturday.

Santorum's day started with a stop in the Cincinnati suburb of Blue Ash where he was greeted by a crowd estimated at 900 well-wishers in the Crowne Plaza Hotel ballroom.  This event, advertised as a family rally, featured preliminary speeches from several local conservative and Tea Party organizations as well as Tony Perkins, a Cincinnati native and current president of the Family Research Council, a Washington DC-based Christian advocacy and lobbying group, who was in the area this weekend and stopped in to give the candidate an unofficial endorsement.  Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, a one-time Romney supporter who recently reneged that backing and endorsed Santorum, introduced the former Pennsylvania lawmaker to the audience.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine provides introductory remarks for his fellow former US Senate colleague Rick Santorum in Blue Ash, Ohio on Saturday.

Santorum, in a 40-minute speech, hit upon many of the positions he has held throughout the lengthy primary campaign.  He said that this upcoming  election revolves around the issues of liberty, the economy, national security and culture.  The fundamental strike at the heart of liberty, according to the candidate, is the Affordable Care Act, more popularly called "Obamacare" in Republican circles, and he sees his main competitor as being "uniquely unqualified" to make the case against the incumbent Democratic president in the fall.  Santorum made the point to the gathered conservative crowd that Romney--who implemented a similar government-run healthcare program while governor of Massachusetts--advised the current administration, through a 2009 op-ed piece in USA Today, to pursue an individual mandate for Obama's proposed program.  He also claimed that Romney forced Catholic hospitals to dispense "morning-after pills" to prevent unwanted pregnancies to help draw a distinct contrast with his own staunch pro-life position.

A father cradles his young son while listening to Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum's remarks at a rally in Blue Ash, Ohio on Saturday.

On economic issues, Santorum advocated changes to the personal and corporate tax rates to stimulate economic growth.  He proposes two personal tax rates--28 and 10 percent--with only five qualifying deductions: children, charities, pensions, healthcare and housing.  For businesses, he wants to cut the existing 35 percent corporate tax rate in half and eliminate all deductions to focus on growth instead of "things to pay their taxes".  He is in favor of a special offering of no corporate taxes to companies who repatriate their overseas holdings and invest them into US-based plants and equipment to create a "Stainless Steel Belt" for industrial-based states like Ohio to witness an "industrial renaissance."  Alluding to his coal miner grandfather, Santorum called the nation's coal, oil and natural gas resources "not a liability but an asset" and said that our "quality of life is related to the availability and affordability of energy," drawing applause in a state that could see economic benefits from relaxing existing federally imposed exploration and extraction regulations.

Several representatives of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Energy's Americaspower.org advocacy group attended Saturday's Santorum rally in Blue Ash, Ohio.

Santorum sees the growing federal budget as a "crushing and immoral debt on future generations" and promises to balance it within five years of taking office by targeting existing entitlement programs while cancelling or repealing planned cuts to the nation's defense budget.  He would set a cap on federal spending to 18 percent of the US's economic total, achieving his vision of limiting that entity's role in an individual's life and allowing them to seek assistance through more traditional means such as "family, church, employer or community."  In his closing remarks, Santorum used the city of Cincinnati as an example of where government has usurped those other resources and sees his candidacy specifically--and the conservative movement as a whole--as "an obligation...to do our duty" and an opportunity for "building and reclaiming America one family, one community, one church, one non-profit organization at a time."

Part of the estimated 900 people in attendance for the Santorum campaign rally in Blue Ash, Ohio on Saturday.

Several Santorum supporters in attendance saw the candidate's positions on family values and economics as his strengths against his primary opponents.  Denise Pieper, a Mt. Washington resident who was attending her first political rally, said that "he stands out by far" and this year is the first time in 16 years that she's been "excited by the voting process."  While the former Pennsylvania senator is her first choice, she said that she would support whoever the eventual GOP candidate is in the fall campaign.  Andy Davidson, a Cincinnati resident who brought his two daughters to the rally, echoed the family values appeal.

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, with his wife Karen and daughter Sarah Maria (behind), greeting supporters at the conclusion of his remarks at a rally in Blue Ash, Ohio on Saturday.

Not everyone in the ballroom was a Santorum follower.  Sumner "Sonny" Saeks, a Blue Ash Democratic precinct executive, came to the rally to see the candidate in person.  Accompanied by his 21-year old daughter, he said he was there because "it's important to know what both sides have to say."  While believing that Romney will be the eventual candidate, Saeks opined that a Santorum-Obama matchup would better draw out the distinctions between the parties in the fall campaign and believes that a Romney-Obama election would be "boring". 

While the candidate was in Oklahoma on Saturday, supporters of the Texas congressman's presidential campaign made Ron Paul's presence felt to those leaving the Rick Santorum rally in Blue Ash, Ohio.

At the completion of the Blue Ash rally, Santorum and his entourage proceeded to Wilmington, Ohio where he, Romney and former US Speaker Newt Gingrich participated in a jobs forum hosted by Fox News host and former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee for broadcast later that evening.  His Saturday concluded with a speech at a Lincoln Day dinner in Lima, a community approximately halfway between Dayton and Toledo.  On the way to the dinner, his motorcade made an impromptu stop in Troy to meet with approximately 100 supporters at K's Hamburger Shop.