The race to define Rick Santorum

The irony is that all this is coming at a time when Mr. Santorum has never looked so good on the stump. He’s toned down his talk on social issues and is reassuring voters he doesn’t intend to “impose” his views on the country. He’s hitting hard on the economic message and reminding audiences that he was pushing big reforms before it was fashionable. At his own turn at the Troy event, he joked of the entitlement mess, “I saw it coming. And people were behind me . . . way behind me.”

Most notably, he’s honed his argument that Mr. Romney has too much baggage and too little nerve to provide a clear contrast with Mr. Obama. If Republicans nominate Mr. Romney, “We give up the issue of freedom of conscience! We give up the issue of bailouts! We give up the issue of cap-and-trade!” thundered Mr. Santorum. “Why would we do that? Why would we nominate someone who’s uniquely unqualified to take on the biggest issues of the day?” By the end of his speech, many of the activists in the crowd were shouting “Go, Rick, go!”

This has been Mr. Santorum’s strategy to rebut the Romney attacks, by trying to keep the focus on the big picture and remind voters of Mr. Romney’s own liabilities. It has worked with folks like Lori Grajek, a 52-year-old substitute teacher from Dearborn. She’s heard about his votes, but she believes she can “trust him” given his longer record of “fighting to get things like health-savings accounts even before they were popular.”