In southwest Ohio speech, Santorum slams Obama foreign policy

On the campaign trail with Felicia Sonmez

GEORGETOWN, Ohio – The Obama campaign is beginning to turn its attention to Rick Santorum.

Former senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.). (Steve Pope/Getty Images)On Friday night, Santorum returned the favor.

The former Pennsylvania senator and surging GOP presidential contender spent the bulk of his remarks at the Brown County Lincoln Day Dinner here Friday night criticizing the Obama administration’s handling of foreign affairs and the economy.

The move was a marked departure from the social-issues-oriented approach that has helped Santorum seize victory in nominating contests in Iowa, Minnesota and Colorado over the past several weeks.

It was also a shift from Santorum’s recent campaign-trail criticism of his rivals for the GOP presidential nomination, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, Rep. Ron Paul (Texas) and former House speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.).

“If everybody’s exceptional, nobody’s exceptional,” Santorum told the roughly 750 Brown County Republicans assembled in the Georgetown Elementary School gymnasium. He was interrupted by applause several times throughout his speech, and many members of the crowd held up Santorum signs as he spoke.

Introducing Santorum was Mike DeWine, the Ohio attorney general who earlier Friday switched his endorsement from former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney to Santorum.

“I (endorsed Romney) because I thought, quite candidly, he had the best chance of winning against Barack Obama,” DeWine told the crowd. “I was wrong. I have changed my mind. ... Several things have become abundantly clear. One thing is that while the governor is a nice person, he can’t win in the fall. It’s also become abundantly clear who can. And that is Rick Santorum.”

DeWine’s remarks were the only mention of one of Santorum’s rivals. The former Pennsylvania senator, tie-less and clad in a dark suit, then took the stage, introduced his son, John, and kicked off his 40-minute remarks, which were focused on Obama.

“As Ohio goes, so goes the nation. So how’s Ohio gonna go?” he said to cheers.

Obama, Santorum argued, “sees America as groups of folks; interest groups; to pit one against the other.”

He contended that Obama has weakened America’s relationships with its major allies, including the United Kingdom, which is “a little honked off at us.” He seized on comments made by Obama last year that France is America’s “best ally in the world.” And he argued that Obama is trying to “unilaterally disarm America.”

“Look at what he’s doing with the nuclear Iran threat — nothing,” Santorum said.

Santorum then skewered Obama’s handling of the economy, arguing that the White House’s newly-unveiled fiscal year 2013 budget is “more of the same.”

Throughout his speech, Santorum repeatedly touched on his blue-collar roots in a southwest Pennsylvania steel town.

“I know what it’s like to be in a town, you get up in the morning, you smell progress,” he said to light laughter from the crowd.

It was only toward the end of his remarks that he focused on the controversy over the Obama administration’s contraception decision — a move that has become a flashpoint in the GOP campaign.

“Did we really ever think that the government of our country would say to you, ‘We will tell you how to spend your money, faith-based institution, church’?” Santorum asked the crowd. “‘We will tell you whether what you do is part of your faith expression or whether we think it’s not and therefore we can tell you what to do’? ‘We can tell you to do things that you consider to be gravely immoral, that you consider to be a sin, that you consider to be unhealthy and wrong’? But the government says, ‘Our values trump your religious values.’”

Santorum holds three more events in Ohio on Saturday before moving on to other upcoming states including Tennessee and Georgia.