Rick Santorum talks faith, freedom and fish in Michigan

WALLED LAKE, Mich. -- At this gathering of the multitudes, they brought more than just five loaves and two fish.

"I love the smell of fish on a Friday night!" a jubilant Rick Santorum exclaimed when he stepped into the packed gymnasium of a Catholic school here, where the scent of fried cod, shrimp and salmon was, as the former senator pointed out, indeed potent.

The Republican presidential candidate dropped in on a time-honored Catholic tradition of fishy fellowship to celebrate the first Friday of Lent fasting. For less than ten dollars, you could wolf down a full plate of fish, potatoes and bread, and meet a man who could one day be president. Walking into the auditorium, Santorum removed his suit coat--did he give up his sweater vests for Lent?--and replaced it with a white apron emblazoned with the sign of the cross. As he stopped to sample the cuisine, reporters with cameras and notebooks swarmed him, only to be immediately scolded by a child who shouted, "Let the poor guy eat!"

Santorum made only brief remarks when he first entered the room, and then walked slowly around the tables, where he signed autographs on kids' arms and greeted the faithful before driving across town to deliver a meatier address on his new policy agenda later that night.

At the Knights of Columbus Hall in Lincoln Park, a blue-collar town south of Detroit, a smaller and more subdued audience awaited him. The room was set up with chairs only around the walls, which members of the press filled quickly, leaving most of his supporters standing in front of a stage, including a group of excited nuns from Ann Arbor. In his address--which lasted nearly an hour--Santorum waded methodically through a 10-point plan of economic proposals he vowed to set in motion in the first 100 days of his presidency. (Perhaps making people stand when you're giving an hour-long policy address is unkind, but it was far from the worst political optics of the day. That honor belonged to Mitt Romney, who delivered an economic address of his own to a nearly empty Ford Field.)

Most of the proposals were ideas Santorum has discussed in the past, including lifting regulations on business, eliminating the corporate tax on manufacturing, repealing the federal health care law and balancing the federal budget, but this was the first speech in which all of the ideas were packaged as a concrete agenda.

Speaking over the noise of two kids who had wandered to the back of the room to play a game that required them to scream for several minutes, Santorum spent most of the address discussing his manufacturing plan, highlighting his emphasis on blue-collar workers and the poor. Santorum's focus on manufacturing is a winner in Michigan, a state still reeling from a massive reduction in industry-related jobs in a place where the economy used to thrive because of them.

"I care about the very poor," he said, a jab at Mitt Romney, who was hammered last month for a statement that, out of context, suggested he didn't. "I'm a 100 percenter when it comes to a president. Not a 99 versus one."

Santorum also spelled out his plan to slash $5 trillion from the federal budget in five years, limit federal spending to 18 percent of the gross domestic product, cut the corporate tax rate for non-manufacturers in half and approve construction of the Keystone Pipeline.

Before he departed for the night, the candidate stepped down from the stage and shook hands with supporters. The group of nuns from Ann Arbor who watched the speech together in the center of the room shuffled toward him. Santorum, a devout Catholic, smiled and waved back, which made them giggle.

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