In Santorum visit, the thrill is gone

The old house across Market Street from the Tangier Restaurant was still sprouting one of  those 1950s rooftop TV antennas.  A few paces away a low-slung building was separated from the world by closed venetian blinds.  Its lettered message above the door  told of the availability of pinballs, pool tables, juke boxes and other once-wildly-popular diversions, although it wasn't immediately clear that the place was still open for business.  To one side facing the street rose a large sign promoting the 65th annual Italian-American Festival, July 13-July 15,  This was Aug. 15.

The Tangier marquee bore a welcome by "Romney-Ryan, Oh., for Senator R. Santorum.'"  But like the scene across the street,  there was an equally strong sense of yesterday  as the small crowd awaited the arrival of their honored guest in a room just off the lobby.    It was on Feb. 19 that Santorum, the darling of the Buckeye Tea Party, drew 1,350 well-wishers to the Summit County  Republican Party Lincoln Day Dinner.  His supporters shunned Mitt Romney by anticipating a big Santorum sweep in Ohio.  As Bryan C. Williams, a veteran factotum in the local GOP and Tea Party admirer, put it, the event would "kind of cement his front-runner status in Ohio."  Besides, Ohio Atty. Gen. Mike DeWine had astonished many of his party's brethren by abandoning Romney's ship to endorse the former Pennsylvania senator.

But as anyone who has aspired to political greatness knows, you must first win the front-runner election, which didn't come close to happening, even as Santorum barked that Mitt was the "worst Republican" his party could nominate.

He didn't repeat that harsh assessment at the Tangier muted pep session.  He was even less demonstrative as he peered out at a standing audience of no more than 75 (!) listeners that included at  least a dozen dutiful local candidates who are never more than a phone call away from one of these events, reporters and Obama's own monitors.   Explaining that county GOP chairman Alex Arshinkoff would not be available (he was ailing), Williams worked to keep the program moving by introducing each local  with the party's trademark musical bump by a small  outfit that managed Stars and Stripes Forever with a guitar, electronic piano and drums, if you can imagine that.

Santorum revived his speeches from the primary season to a courteous group,  many wearing
Romney lapel stickers.   But he was less than connective as he assailed Obama as a lawbreaker, a warrior on religion  (got that, Catholics?) , and a divisive character who was in the game simply to collect votes.  "You have a right," he said, in his insistence on pulpiteering, "to live your faith out."  But his biggest applause line was his promise that the  Romney-Ryan campaign would go after the media. It's a standby promise, but it usually works with the right crowd.
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On the whole he did seem less energized than the time he stood up  before the Lincoln Day dinner crowd.   But he had so many more listeners in February and considered himself the frontrunner.  Today he will merely be the supernumerary on the Romney-Ryan Comeback America Team.

Losers tend to draw much smaller crowds. And, likewise,  that Italian-American festival is history.




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