KEENE, NH — Give Rick Santorum credit, he doesn’t change his message just because he’s in another state.
The most prominent social conservative in the race, Santorum has made no apologies for playing up issues like religion, gay rights, or abortion even as the general election is expected to be dominated by economic concerns. And he has no intention of modifying his playbook for New Hampshire, where evangelicals are a far less dominant force than Iowa.
“People said ‘Why do you come to New Hampshire?'” he told a packed library basement in Keene on Friday morning. “‘Republicans here side a bit more with the Obama view of the world than with the Reagan view of the world–‘”
He was interrupted before he could finish his thought, however, as police and fire officials stopped the event to funnel the overflowing crowd into nearby rooms out of safety concerns.
Gathering his thoughts, Santorum again made the case for his old time religion, arguing that the election is “more than about just the economy.”
In defending his faith-focused approach, he argued that the Founding Father’s religion was all that kept America from sliding into the “godless” French Revolution’s bloodletting.
“The whole premise of America is that everyone has rights and dignity because we are created by God,” he said.
But the message hasn’t exactly caught fire at his events. The crowd applauded his Obama-bashing — he said December’s strong job numbers were borne from “optimism that Republicans will win the White House” — but his condemnations of gay marriage and gays in the military talk drew silence at best and outright hostility at worst from the mixed political crowd.
“Marriage is a privilege, it is not a right,” he said to a questioner who asked whether he would protect gay people’s rights, since they’re “children of God” as well. “It’s not discrimination to grant privileges, it’s discrimination not to grant rights.”
That response sparked shouts and boos from the back rows.
“That is twisted,” one woman muttered to herself as Santorum continued. “Shame, shame,” an elderly man whispered.
It was the second time in two days he’d received jeers in the state when discussing the issue.
As he alluded to in his remarks, many political observers are scratching their heads about why Santorum contested New Hampshire in the first place rather than cede it to Mitt Romney and spend his time and resources in friendlier South Carolina, where Romney is suddenly threatening to put the race out of reach. But it’s far too late to second guess now. He’s made 73 visits to the state since the campaign got under way, more than any candidate apart from the New Hampshire-focused Jon Huntsman and all without even the slightest bump in his polls until now. If he can’t carry his Iowa momentum into a strong Granite State showing, there will be no spinning the results.
At a Newt Gingrich town hall on Thursday, Grafton county GOP chairman Bruce Perlo recalled how Santorum had made repeated visits to the area with little resultant buzz whatsoever.
“I think they’re cooked,” he said of the non-Romney field.
But there were at least some potential converts at Santorum’s Keene town hall.
“When I saw what happened in Iowa I couldn’t get here fast enough,” Bill Borden, 82, a laundromat owner, told TPM. “I didn’t know anything about him until he won, but now that I’ve seen him I agree with everything said. We want work, we want people who earn what they get.”
Joan Benkik, 76, a local restaurant owner, chimed in that she was also very impressed with what she saw.
“He’s moral,” she said, adding that she admires his “straightforwardness.”
