Social conservative Santorum aims to broaden his appeal

Santorum, who is expected to announce his candidacy for president Monday in Pennsylvania, yesterday toured Ruger Firearms in Newport, N.H., visited a new Sullivan County Republican office, and addressed a Young Republicans dinner.

Santorum seems committed to broadening his appeal beyond his reputation as a social conservative. So far, that reputation has not served him well in New Hampshire.

Despite 17 trips to New Hampshire since April 2010, Santorum has hovered at around 2 percent in the polls, according to Andrew Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. Smith said that can be attributed to a lack of name recognition and the New Hampshire public’s perception of Santorum as a religious social conservative.

“If your major reason for running is a socially conservative agenda, you won’t run very well with Republicans in New Hampshire,’’ Smith said. A 2009 Gallup study ranked New Hampshire as the second least religious state in the country. University of New Hampshire polls show Republican primary voters in the state are more supportive of abortion rights than the country as a whole.

Santorum says his Catholic faith is at “the center of how I try to live my life.’’ He cites the biblical tenet “We are our brother’s keeper’’ to promote individual responsibility to care for the needy. He believes government’s role should be limited to the neediest.

Politically, Santorum has been a leading opponent of abortion rights. He wrote legislation outlawing a type of late-term abortion and wrote a bill, signed into law by President Bush, defining an infant who is born alive after a failed abortion as a person. He staunchly opposes gay marriage.