Tampa: Santorum speaks

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum wows the crowd at the Forum — seems to be a residual feeling of support for a well-fought primary campaign. Was he the one that got away? In his speech, Santorum burnishes his family-man image, saluting his son at The Citadel, repeating the Santorum family biography, the substance of his campaign oratory — immigrant forebears — grandfather working in the mines of Pennsylvania until the age if 72. “America believed in him; that’s why he believed in America.”

But the man in the sweater vest still pulls a knife from time to time. Speech tonight takes a shot at marriage equality (expressing preference for a nation “where married moms and dads are pillars of strong communities,” saying “If America is to succeed, we must stop the assault on marriage and the family in America today”) and federal programs generally (“the dream of freedom has become a nightmare of dependency”).

Then he repeats the bald-faced lie making the GOP rounds that Obama waived work-for-welfare requirements.

Santorum later tries to make a point using hands as the throughline metaphor. Over time it’s a bit overdone, but Santorum is at least rhetorically reaching for the rafters with a speech that tries in an overwrought way to achieve the context of a big vision.

Then he pivots to talk about his special-needs daughter Bella … and Santorum seems to connect here. His eyes misting — and whose eyes wouldn’t? Santorum brings the passion.

Then he switches up again, talks about the abortion issue with an implicit endorsement of the official GOP platform, in the process contemporizes the words of the Declaration of Independence (“all men, all men, are created equal.”) Note to Rick: As long as you’re contemporizing that quote, how about a mention of women. Given the subject, it just seems right ...

---