Santorum needs win in Ohio for nomination

March 4, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

McClatchy Newspapers

COLUMBUS

If Rick Santorum is ever going to be president, he’s probably going to have to show it in Ohio.

He’s falling further behind front-runner Mitt Romney by the week. He needs a win in a delegate-rich battleground state to show the rest of the country he can overcome Romney’s moneyed campaign machine, and to start gaining ground in the delegates needed to win the Republican nomination.

Win Ohio, and Santorum could grab his best shot at overtaking Romney.

Lose it, and Santorum will fall further behind in delegates with a shrinking field of opportunity to make up ground. Worse, he’d have a devil of a time explaining how he lost a state where conservatives, evangelical Christians and blue-collar workers offered him a fertile hunting ground for support similar to his home state next door.

Arriving Friday for a weekend full of Ohio, Santorum explained the outsized importance of the state heading toward caucuses and primaries in 10 states Tuesday. “You seem to always be the center of the political universe in America,” Santorum said at a rally in Willoughby, east of Cleveland.

Polls show the race neck and neck between Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania, and Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas lag far behind.

For Santorum, the best shot might come from social conservatives in small towns and suburbs who applaud his outspoken stands on issues such as abortion, gay marriage and government-mandated free contraception.

“He takes a sturdy stand for the family,” said January Batten, a stay-at-home mom who home-schools her five children in Kettering, outside Dayton.

“Being pro-life is the No. 1 issue,” said Gwen Sobieski, a stay-at-home mom from Kettering. “I listen to a lot of Christian and Catholic radio. I’ve heard him interviewed. He’s very strong on it and always has been.”

Born-again Christians or evangelicals make up about 40 percent of the likely voters in Ohio, according to a poll by Quinnipiac University. Santorum gets 40 percent of them, almost as much as Romney’s 23 percent and Gingrich’s 21 percent combined.

Some activists fear, though, that social conservatives might be turned away by the fear that Santorum would drive away independents and lose the general election.