Santorum targets smaller cities and towns for religiously conservative, blue-collar voters

Felicia Sonmez of The Washington Post reports from Steubenville, Ohio: "To any visitor, the best days of this small, former steel-mill town nestled in the Ohio Valley would appear to be behind it. . . . For Rick Santorum, small towns like Steubenville aren’t about the past. They’re the very towns that will determine his political future. . . . Steubenville is home to precisely the combination of religious conservatives and blue-collar Rust Belt voters that Santorum is hoping will lead him to victory on Super Tuesday and beyond."

Brad Swenson, retired political editor of The Pioneer in Bemidji, Minn., and Santorum
(Photo by Charles Rex Arbogast, The Associated Press)

Sonmez reports that many in the crowd of 500 seemed to respond well to "the positive tone that Santorum was seeking to strike" on social and economic issues. "Santorum has made small, working-class towns such as Steubenville a key part of his potential road to the White House. Over the past several days, he has attended local Republican Party Lincoln Day Dinners across Ohio and has honed and fine-tuned his campaign-trail rhetoric to play up his blue-collar appeal." (Read more)