DIXON, Ill. — Standing beside a statue of President Ronald Reagan, former Sen. Rick Santorum likened his conservative campaign to that of the late Republican idol Monday and implored Illinois voters not to compromise the Reganesque principles Santorum claims to share when they head to the polls Tuesday.
Santorum’s stop at Reagan’s boyhood home was part of an election-eve swing through Illinois that focused on small-town voters and drew hundreds of supporters to the streets of Dixon, Ill., to hear Santorum make a last-minute pitch peppered with Reagan quotes and jabs at his chief rival for the Republican presidential nomination, Mitt Romney.
“Don’t make [the election] about who can best manage Washington, or be the CEO of the economy,” Santorum said, deriding the private-sector experience that Romney offers as his primary qualification for the nomination. “We need someone who can talk and strike blows for big things, like Reagan did.”
Meanwhile, Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, spoke as though he’d already seized the party’s nomination, arriving at President Obama’s old stomping grounds at the University of Chicago to lambaste the president’s economic policies.
“The Obama administration’s assault on our economic freedom is the principal reason why the recovery has been so tepid, why it couldn’t meet their projections, let alone our expectations,” Romney said.
Even as Romney and his backers poured millions of advertising dollars into Illinois — by some estimates outspending Santorum 10-to-1 — Romney has focused his attention squarely on the mission of ousting Obama in November, trying to reestablish an aura of inevitability around his candidacy.
Republican voters in Illinois, who usually cast ballots long after the Republican nominating race is decided, so far are split between Santorum and Romney with 69 convention delegates at stake. Supporters in Romney’s downstate stops saw him as the only Republican candidate who can best Obama, even as they admitted admiration for Santorum’s faith-and-family campaign.
Santorum supporters, however, expressed overwhelming dissatisfaction with Romney, with some threatening not to vote at all in November if Romney is the nominee.
“To me, Romney is Obama,” said Bill Bowman of Rock Falls, Ill., one of those claiming they wouldn’t support Romney in the general election. “America needs to have a dialogue and conversation about the direction of our country and with Romney we don’t get that.”
Still, Romney is likely to find many suburban Republicans — more moderate than their rural counterparts — turned off by Santorum’s staunchly held views on women’s health and other social issues. Sensing this, Santorum has frequently pushed large crowds in downstate Illinois to outvote Chicago area Republicans.
It might not be enough. The state’s congressional map and complex voting rules favor Romney. Santorum won’t even be in Illinois to celebrate the election results, heading instead to his home state of Pennsylvania.
What Santorum hopes to take away from Illinois, his supporters said Monday, is enough delegates to keep alive the momentum he needs to continue in the campaign.
“We support him 100 percent right now,” said Shawn Loomis with his wife, Megan. “He’s true to the people. He doesn’t have to fake his stances.”
