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The underdog in the fight for the Republican presidential nomination is bringing his campaign to a town where the battle metaphors are ripe for the picking.
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum will host an election night party at the Gettysburg Hotel Tuesday to celebrate as results of the Illinois primary are announced.
The event will be free and open to public, with large screens projecting
the race results and Santorum expected to respond to results with a speech, said Matt Beynon, the campaign's deputy communications director.
Santorum wasn't invited by a particular group, but chose Gettysburg for a "symbolic reason" he'll discuss Tuesday, Beynon said.
The former senator has a history with the state of Pennsylvania and the Gettysburg area, Beynon said. During his tenure as U.S. senator, he worked to raise federal money for the relocation of Gettysburg's visitors center and an interpretive project on the historic David Wills House downtown, Beynon said.
Santorum was senator from 1995 to 2007, losing his 2006 re-election bid to current Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa.
Steer clear of side battle: The head of Adams County's Republican committee said the Santorum event will likely draw a crowd downtown, but her organization has not been formally approached by the campaign and isn't organizing a turnout.
"All we know is that he's planning to be at the hotel at 8:00," said Elizabeth Hower, chairwoman of the Adams County GOP. "It'll be an exciting night."
The local party hasn't endorsed a presidential candidate and won't until after the primary, she said.
But she did recommend Santorum's camp steer away from referencing the controversial visitors center project.
"That made a big difference to the business owners on Steinwehr Avenue ... a negative one," she said. "Some people were very much in love with the old visitors center with the electric map and felt it was perfectly good ... so it's a pretty much divided community about that. But the fact that he tried to help do for those who wanted to do was fine."
Regardless of one's views on that topic, business owners will probably enjoy a little boom from the campaign stop.
Norris Flowers, president of the Gettysburg Convention and Visitors Bureau, said he expects hotel rooms to be booked with people who want to see Santorum, as well as his entourage and national and international members of the media.
"That'll be some good exposure," Flowers said.
Yorkers not organized: Bob Wilson, chairman of the York County Republican Committee, said his group hasn't endorsed a candidate and isn't organizing a trip to see Santorum.
"Some (Yorkers) will probably go over, as many as would want to see Newt Gingerich, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul," he said. "(Santorum's) name carries an awful lot of weight, but so does Newt Gingerich and Mitt Romney. Depending on who you speak with will decide what their opinion is."
Santorum's conservative views on social topics such as birth control and abortion have garnered him big support from evangelical Christians and tea party supporters.
York 912 Patriots, the local arm of the tea party, doesn't endorse candidates and isn't organizing a trip to see Santorum, said Lee Ann Burkholder, communications director.
As of Monday morning, Santorum was in second place for the delegate race, having captured 263 delegates to Romney's 521. A candidate needs 1,144 delegates to win the nomination, and there are 1,324 delegates remaining. Pennsylvania's primary is April 24.
-- Reach Christina Kauffman at 505-5436, ckauffman@yorkdispatch.com, or follow her on Twitter at @YDYorkCounty.
