Offering a few brief glimpses of what a Rick Santorum for President campaign might sound like in 2012, the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania made a brief stop Tuesday night at a Crowne Plaza hotel outside Reading to fire up a crowd of several hundred Berks County Republicans.

Targeting Democrats, but particularly President Barack Obama, the Republican Santorum urged GOP committee members to stand up against the growing reach and cost of government and a weak foreign policy that threatens not just what the country represents, but what it “aspires to be.”

Santorum told the crowd that Obama seeks to make the United States like Europe, a continent whose citizens have turned their backs on faith and grown selfish, and where governments bestow rights upon the citizenry, rather than a place where all are born with God-given rights.

“We aspire to be that beacon, that shining city on a hill,” Santorum said.

The conservative Santorum, defeated in 2006 by Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, has made no secret of his presidential ambitions in recent months.

He is scheduled to visit South Carolina — a critical southern state in the presidential primary calendar — next week. He also made an October visit to Iowa, whose caucuses kick off the primary season, and appeared among a cast of presidential hopefuls that included former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference last weekend in New Orleans.

There he received the support of just 2 percent of delegates in a straw poll, far behind former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Congressman Ron Paul, who received 24 percent each.

Leaving the event in a hurry to catch a train, Santorum said he’s not auditioning material for a potential presidential run, but is instead focused on getting people motivated to help the Republican party maximize its gains in the 2010 midterm Congressional elections.

He told the crowd he thinks the GOP could pick up as many as eight seats in Pennsylvania in November with quality candidates and motivated voters. He pointed out Republican State Sen.David Argall, whose Schuylkill County-based district includes parts of Berks, Lehigh, Carbon, Monroe and Northampton counties.

Argall is running in a Republican primary to take on Democratic Rep. Tim Holden in the 17th Congressional District, which includes sections of Berks, Schuylkill, Dauphin, Lebanon and Perry counties.

Santorum got his biggest applause when he called Sen. Arlen Specter, a Republican turned Democrat, “A senator who must be defeated.”

Read more from the Morning Call’s “Pennsylvania Ave.”

Tags: Rick Santorum, Rick Santorum 2012, Rick Santorum for President

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 14th, 2010 at 11:45 am and is filed under Front Page Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.