Lashing out on two fronts, Rick Santorum on Saturday questioned President Barack Obama's Christian values and attacked GOP rival Mitt Romney's Olympics leadership as he courted tea party activists and evangelical voters in Ohio, "ground zero" in the 2012 nomination fight.

Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator known for his social conservative views, said Obama's agenda is based on "some phony theology. Not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology." He later suggested that the president practices a different kind of Christianity.

"In the Christian church there are a lot of different stripes of Christianity," he said. "If the president says he's a Christian, he's a Christian."

The Obama campaign said the comments represent "the latest low in a Republican primary campaign that has been fueled by distortions, ugliness, and searing pessimism and negativity."

Santorum was forced on his heels in recent days after a top supporter suggested women use aspirin to prevent pregnancy.

In Ohio, a Super Tuesday prize, he shifted decidedly to offense before friendly crowds. Trailing Romney in money and campaign resources, Santorum is depending on the tea party movement and religious groups to deliver a victory March 6 in the Midwestern contest.

More delegates will be awarded in Ohio than in any other state except Georgia in the opening months of the Republican campaign. Ohio and Georgia are two of the 10 contests scheduled for March 6, a benchmark for the primary campaign that often decides who can continue to the next level.

Santorum has surged in recent opinion polls after capturing Republican caucuses in Minnesota and Colorado and a non-binding primary in Missouri on Feb. 7. Several polls have shown him ahead in Romney's native state of Michigan, where primary voters cast ballots a week from Tuesday.

Obama's campaign team has responded by starting to consider the possibility that Santorum rather than Romney could be the Republican nominee. The Chicago-based organization has begun scrutinizing Santorum's past record and asked its Pennsylvania allies to look for information that might be used against Santorum in future ads and speeches.

Even as he criticized Obama, Santorum also went after one of Romney's most promoted achievements — his leadership at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

"One of Mitt Romney's greatest accomplishments, one of the things he talks about most is how he heroically showed up on the scene and bailed out and resolved the problems of the Salt Lake City Olympic Games," Santorum said. "He heroically bailed out the Salt Lake City Olympic Games by heroically going to Congress and asking them for tens of millions of dollars to bail out the Salt Lake games — in an earmark, in an earmark for the Salt Lake Olympic games."

The Romney campaign does not dispute that congressional earmarks helped save the games. But they noted that Santorum voted for those earmarks, among many others, when he was a senator.

"Sometimes when you shoot from the hip, you end up shooting yourself in the foot," Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said. "There is a pretty wide gulf between seeking money for post-9/11 security at the Olympics and seeking earmarks for polar bear exhibits at the Pittsburgh Zoo."

Santorum used a later appearance before the Ohio Christian Alliance to go after Romney for using his financial advantage as "as a club to beat anyone who gets in his way." But he saved his most pointed criticism for Obama, suggesting that the Democratic president's health care overhaul encouraged abortions by requiring insurance plans to cover prenatal screenings.

"It saves money in health care. Why? Because free pre-natal testing ends up in more abortions and therefore less care that has to be done because we cull the ranks of the disabled from our society," Santorum said. "That too is part of ObamaCare. Another hidden message as to what Obama thinks of those who are less able than the elites who want to govern our country."

Santorum planned to finish his day in Akron before heading to Georgia on Sunday. While 63 delegates are at stake in Ohio, Georgia offers 76.

"There's no state that can shout louder. You are the biggest state. You've got the biggest trove of delegates," Santorum told the Brown County Republican Party on Friday night. "This is ground zero. Ohio."

Questions about whether Santorum can sustain his rise in the polls come amid signs of stress within his campaign, mainly disorganization. Romney's machine, coupled with new scrutiny for Santorum's view of social issues as well as governmental policies, will give Santorum little margin for error.

As an example, one misstep by a Santorum supporter kept the former senator off message at times for two days.

Foster Friess, the main donor behind Santorum's "super PAC," created a stir Thursday when he related on MSNBC an old joke about how aspirin used to be a method for birth control. "Back in my days, they used Bayer aspirin for contraception," Friess said with a grin. "The gals put it between their knees and it wasn't that costly."

Friess apologized Friday in a blog post. But Santorum was repeatedly forced to distance himself from his surrogate's comments, which Santorum described as "a bad joke." The comments drew unwanted attention to Santorum's own musings about contraception and women's issues.

"Santorum has been in the position of explaining on all of these issues. And when you're explaining in politics, you're losing," said Phil Musser, a GOP strategist who doesn't work for either campaign.

Presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Thursday said Republicans should give President Barack Obama another term if Santorum isn’t the GOP nominee and for a second day compared rival Mitt Romney to an Etch A Sketch toy.

Santorum reiterated an argument he has made before: The former Massachusetts governor is not conservative enough to offer voters a clear choice in the fall election and that only he can provide that contrast.

“You win by giving people a choice,” Santorum said during a campaign stop in Texas. “You win by giving people the opportunity to see a different vision for our country, not someone who’s just going to be a little different than the person in there.”

Santorum added: “If they’re going to be a little different, we might as well stay with what we have instead of taking a risk of what may be the Etch A Sketch candidate for the future.”

Santorum was referencing Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom’s comment Wednesday that “everything changes” for the fall campaign. “It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch,” he said on CNN. “You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again.”

The remark reignited criticism of Romney as the type of politician who will say or do anything to win.

Romney, who made no public appearances Thursday, issued a statement expressing disappointment “that Rick Santorum would rather have Barack Obama as president than a Republican.”

“This election is more important than any one person. It is about the future of America,” he said. “Any of the Republicans running would be better than President Obama and his record of failure.”

Rival Newt Gingrich tweeted: “Rick Santorum is dead wrong. Any GOP nominee will be better than Obama.”

During his speech to employees of USAA, a San Antonio-based insurance and financial services firm, Santorum briefly held up an Etch A Sketch and said his positions don’t change like etchings on the toy, which are erased with a shake. He could be seen fiddling with the toy’s knobs in the intervals between questions from audience members.

Addressing reporters afterward, Santorum lit into Romney for saying “I’m going to run as a conservative.”

“He didn’t say ‘I am a conservative.’ He said ‘I’m going to run as a conservative.’ So what do you do, you just sort of decide what you’re going to be for the elections?” Santorum asked. “No one can accuse me of that. People say, ‘Well, you can’t win because of that.’ No, I will win because of it.”

Santorum said his brand of political authenticity will play well in Texas because “people are looking for someone who is real, someone they can relate to, not someone who can get in front of an audience and say whatever they want.”

The Texas primary has been pushed to May 29 because of litigation over redistricting maps drawn by the Republican-dominated state Legislature. Santorum said he expects to win Saturday’s primary in Louisiana and added, “The race will not be over when Texas comes around.”

“You’ll have the opportunity here, in the state of Texas, to speak very loudly about what kind of leader you want in this country,” he said.

Santorum said he speaks with Texas Gov. Rick Perry before scheduled campaign stops in the state. Perry sought the GOP nomination but left the race in January and endorsed former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

“This is an important state for us,” Santorum said. “I’ve already spent a lot of time, I’ve already done a lot of campaign events in Texas. More than anybody else, I suspect.”