COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Former Sen. Rick Santorum dipped deep into the reservoir of American history analogies during his final day of campaigning in Ohio. The Pennsylvania Republican, addressing a crowd of several hundred at a rally in an American Legion hall outside Columbus, made connections between government mandates, the American Revolution, and the 2012 election.
All of that was fair play, certainly when compared to some of the liberties politicians take when using historical symbolism. But then Santorum went a bit further, mocking the British soldiers for their "spiffy uniforms."
This election is about big things. It is about whether the flame that our founders lit in writing that document in 1776 in the face of impossible odds. Impossible odds. We use that term impossible as if it doesn't really mean impossible, just hard. Well that day it was impossible. Yet, they did something remarkable. A group of rag-tag people who believed in themselves, who were willing to fight and sacrifice and put everything on the line against the most powerful army in the world, the red coats, with their spiffy uniforms, and the elite, the noble class that governed them against a rag-tag group of soldiers from different parts of the country, some not even speaking the same language as the other having to communicate through translators within the ranks of the American army. This was America. We were a collection of very different people ... They came together for one purpose: to break away from a tyrannical government who wanted to mandate and govern their lives.
Santorum did not directly mention Mitt Romney and the mandates that he applied to health care coverage while governor of Massachusetts. But the implication seemed fairly clear.
A more interesting remark actually preceded Santorum's comments about the red coats, when he insisted that the Republican Party had to be more than just a party of tax-cutters.
"The national media, and yes the left, and yes even some within our own party have suggested that oh, you just can't talk about [family values]," said Santorum. "You just have to be the party of tax cuts. Ladies and gentlemen, if we're just the party of tax cuts we'll never win another election. America cares about more than just lower taxes."