Santorum: Opponents too hot or too cold; I'm "just right"

FORT MILL, S.C. -- Rick Santorum told a packed South Carolina restaurant on Friday that next to "hot radioactive" Newt Gingrich and "cold, timid" Mitt Romney, he's the "just right" porridge in the presidential election edition of the fairytale classic, "Goldilocks and the Three Bears."

Addressing a crowd of several hundred at Captain Steve's Restaurant here, Santorum said there are "three people who could be the nominee of our party," intentionally slighting Rep. Ron Paul, whom Santorum has repeatedly called unelectable.

"One is, well, a little radioactive in the sense of you just don't know what he's going to do or what he's going to say," Santorum said, citing Gingrich's comments earlier in the day that he'd like to reexamine the gold standard.

Moving on to Romney's Massachusetts health care plan, he continued, "And then you have Goldilocks going to the next place, and finding some soup that was a little cold, that's timid, that isn't transformational, that isn't one with strong convictions and spice. Someone who you're not quite sure about where they are on the issues."

But Santorum implied a hot head of his own. Asked by a young boy, "How can I pray for you?" Santorum said he's run into frequent criticism that his "passionate" tone comes across as angry. Alluding to his wife Karen's favorite piece of advice to him, Santorum answered, "Pray for me to chill," before adding a prayer request a bit more politically loaded: "Pray for the discernment of the people of South Carolina.