Gettysburg – Rick Santorum returned home Tuesday night, seeking to regain his footing after a more than ten point loss to Mitt Romney in Illinois.

It is the third contested Rust Belt state to fall into Romney’s column, following Michigan and Ohio.

But the crowd at the Lincoln Hotel in Gettysburg didn’t mind. About 1,200 supporters lined up to see their former Senator. Chants of “We want Rick!” filled the hall. Indeed, the crowd was so large and the room so small that there was serious discussion about moving the event outside.

“I feel welcome back home in Pennsylvania, thank you so much!”

Across the street from the place where Abraham Lincolnc delivered the Gettysburg Address, Santorum sought to tie his campaign theme to Lincoln’s legacy.

“You think about the great elections of our past. I’ve gone around this country over the past year now, and said this is the most important election of our lifetimes. In fact, I think this is the most important election since the election of 1860.”

“While other issues are certainly important – the economy, joblessness, national security concens, family, the issue of life, all of these issues are important – but the foundational issue of this race,” he said: “Freedom.”

Santorum’s relocation to Pa. Comes as the presidential hopeful tried to recover from the outcome in Illinois as well as Puerto Rico.

He criticized Romney for his moderate issue positions and inconsistency.

America, “wants someone who’s not gonna go to Washington DC because they want to be the most powerful person in the world to manage Washington. They want someone who’s gonna take that power and give it back to the people of this country.”

“Romneycare, Obamacare, they’re interchangeable,” Santorum said to applause.

Santorum said he was pleased with his performance in central in southern Illinois. But he was cleary trying to change the subject.

“This is about trying to reinvigorate his campaign,” said Terry Madonna, Director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin and Marshall College. “This is about changing the narrative.” The Gettysburg location, “is a not so subtle change in topic to ‘freedom.’”

“He needs a big narrative change in order to undo the recent momentum shift to Romney.”

As such, the Santorum campaign is trying to counteract some of the biggest arguments for Romney. John Brabender, Santorum’s media consultant, said the former Senator’s wins in solidly Republican states bodes better than Romney’s strong performance among moderates.

“Right now Romney is doing well in aras where he’s probably going to have trouble getting votes in the fall against Obama, we’re doing well in the areas that you need, plus we’re exciting the base,” he said.

He argued that Romney’s areas of strength in the primary would be moot in a general.

“What we find is, look, Romney did really well in Massachusetts and I’ll tell you what he isn’t going to win Massachusetts in the fall. And so he’s able to do well in the collar coutnies of Chicago, many of them are going to vote for Obama in the fall.”

Santorum briefly mentioned the delegate count twice. Once when he said he was preparing – after he competes in the Louisiana primary on Saturday – to kick off his effort in Pa.

“I grew up in this great state, and this is the first day, this is the launch, I wanted to come here to launch our campaign in Pennsylvania. We have five weeks to a big win and a big delegate sweep in Pennsylvania.”

However, the primary eleciton here is not binding for delegates and a significant number of the men and women running for delegate have committed to Romney or have not committed to any candidate.

Santorum’s campaign similarly pushed back against Romney’s delegate math in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday afternoon. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports:

The campaign told reporters on a conference call today that the count kept by the Associated Press, widely cited by other news organization, relies on flawed assumptions that gives Mitt Romney too many delegates and Rick Santorum too few.

They presented their own delegate tally, which relate, campaign spokesman Hogan Gidley said, “to the rules as they currently are, and not to any made-up rules that somehow try to change the perception of reality.” Where the AP has Romney with 522 delegates and Santorum with 252, the Santorum campaign gives Romney 435 delegates and their candidate 311.

Meanwhile outside the hotel, about 100 protesters gathered in opposition to Santorum’s stances on health care, reproductive issue and gay rights.

It could have doubled as a congressional campaign event. A number of the 4th district congressional candidates – each seeking to replace the retiring Rep. Todd Platts, worked the crowd or the protesters.

State Rep. Scott Perry of Dillsburg, Ted Waga, a police sergeant from Red Lion, and Kevin Downs, an accountant and banker from Windsor Township, worked the line of attendees. So did staffers for Chris Reilly, York County Commissioner.

Ken Lee, an attorney from Cumberland County and Harry Perkinson, an engineer from York County, greeted protesters.