So, presidential hopeful Rick Santorum was expected to show up at the Gettysburg Hotel at 8 p.m. Tuesday night. Now, most of his loyal followers and the media knew that wasn't going to happen. But the rookies were doing an awful lot of complaining and whining.
There was a large television near the front of the ballroom, and everyone was watching Mitt Romney give his acceptance speech for his win in Illinois. It became clear that Santorum might have already arrived, but didn't want to step on Romney's toes, or better yet, didn't want to be ignored by CNN as Romney spoke.
Sure enough, Romney says thanks and goodbye, and Santorum makes his appearance here to a suddenly forgiving crowd. CNN plugs in a commercial or two, and then switches to Gettysburg, the place Santorum's press people called "The Land of Lincoln". (Isn't that Illinois?)
So, Santorum parades his wife and most of his seven kids onto the stage and begins his speech. I'm no speech writer, and get tongue-tied in front of more than two people, but the speech lacked something. It had plenty of fire, enough to get supporters excited, but lacked much of a connection to Gettysburg. Except for a few phrases, the same speech could have been given in Illinois. Or Idaho or Arkansas.
It seems he could have used Lincoln's Gettysburg Address words "of the people, by the people and for the people" like a hammer since he's attacking Obama's big government. Unfortunately, the speech was somewhat flat -- he mentioned he didn't have a teleprompter in the room-- and the world will "little note nor long remember when we say here:".
The large crowd of picketers outside, mostly women from Gettysburg College, reminded Santorum of Lincoln's "all men are created equal." Of course, they thought Lincoln meant women, too.
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