Uganda Picks

After unexpected victories in three states on Tuesday night, Rick Santorum swept into North Texas on Wednesday, where he sought to build momentum by assuring Republican primary voters that he and not Newt Gingrich was the true and reliable conservative in the presidential race.

Santorum began his day by appealing to his base, evangelical social conservatives in a part of the state that had been Rick Perry country until recently. In a church in McKinney on the morning, he told a group of Dallas-area ministers that he always had been an outspoken foe of abortion and same-sex marriage and always would be. The ministers responded with prayers on Santorum’s behalf and a ritual laying on of hands.

The former Pennsylvania senator also came to Texas in his words, “the conservative epicenter of this country”  with his hand out. Between public events in the Dallas area, he spent a five-hour block of time raising money. His campaign reported Internet donations totaling $250,000 in the wake of his Tuesday night victories in Missouri, Colorado and Minnesota.

After meeting with supporters in Allen, Santorum in the evening spoke to a crowd of approximately 700 in Plano, who gathered at a faux-rustic barn called Fairview Farms. Some 400 stood shoulder to shoulder inside; another 300 or so stood and listened in the chill night air.

Bob Mohler, a computer securities analyst from Irving, said he and his daughter, Kayla, came to the event, in part because of Santorum’s sweep Tuesday.

“I’ve liked him and Newt,” Mohler said. “They’ve been my top two choices since the get-go. Now, it’s a toss-up. I’d take either one. Romney, I’d vote for, but I wouldn’t be happy.”
Margaret Kilbury, a Garland nurse, said she wanted Gingrich “to go away,” so that social conservatives would coalesce around Santorum. Initially a Herman Cain supporter, she said Santorum seemed to be “a good guy, with good family values.”

Santorum told the Plano crowd that they had to stop President Barack Obama’s “radical, statist socialist agenda.” Obama, he said, had “systematically tried to destroy the foundational elements of this nation.”