Santorum Rally Holds Moment of Silence for Bella Santourm's Health

Despite afternoon due to the hospitalization of his youngest daughter, the rally wasn't Santorum-less.

His daughter Elizabeth Santorum spoke for roughly two minutes and signed autographs and posed for pictures at the Republican presidential candidate's Sarasota grassroots rally at in Manatee County.

Elizabeth Santorum said her father wished he could be in Sarasota, but his family obligation comes first.

"My dad today is exercising his most important role, which is being a dad," she said, drawing applause and cheers from the audience.

Rick Santorum's 3-year-old daughter Bella, was hospitalized Saturday in Philadelphia due to pneumonia, and she suffers from a rare genetic condition called Trisomy-18, that gave her an extra chromosome. Santorum canceled several Florida appearances to be with his daughter today. The rally started off with a moment of silence and prayer for Bella.

Elizabeth Santorum, 20, shared how she believes in her father winning the race and the difficulties campaigning are accepted.

"We knew this would be worth it because America is worth it," she said.

Santorum ended her speech aiming to motivate the audience by saying how the fore fathers meant to inspire the world in addition to changing histor,, and Santorum hopes that the folks in the audience would change the course of history themselves by voting Tuesday.

"Stand up Florida, you have three days left, let's take this all the way," she said.

, a Sarasota resident and Pennsylvania native, said he feels positive about Santorum's chances going into Tuesday. 

"We feel better than ever," Biter told Patch. "We feel so good. Honestly, there's something happening. We won the Strawberry Caucus, it's just awesome."

Locally, Santorum also won the Tea Party Manatee straw poll last week.

However, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll, the former U.S. senator has 12 percent of support in the Florida primary, placing him third behind Mitt Romney, at 44 percent, and Newt Gingrich at 28 percent.  

Over the next three days, volunteers will be doing a lot of work, knocking on doors along with traditional campaigning strategies across the state to get out the vote for Santorum, Biter said. 

As for Santorum's involvement himself in Florida, that depends on his daughter.

"It really just depends on Bella right now," Biter said. "We're just waiting to see him." 

The crowd and media presence was much smaller than that of , when he visited Tuesday inside the same hangar. 

But a large family featured on TLC came out to support Santorum — the Duggars. Six of the 19 children came to speak at the event, and sing the national anthem along with a family friend from Tennessee's Bates family who appears in the show.

Joshua Duggar, 23, said Santorum is the family's choice, as they travel around in a Rick Santorum for President bus

"There is only man who stood by his principles, stood by his convictions, who has stood by his family like he is today," he said, citing his pro-gun efforts, being in favor of the Keystone Pipeline oil production, defining marriage as being between a man and woman among other measures.

Jill Duggar, 20, also spoke, said that the family prayed asking who to support, and looked at voting records when they decided to support Rick Santorum and on New Year's Eve took the family bus and designed into a Rick Santorum for President since campaigning for the Iowa caucus.

"We just know he's the true conservative in the race," Jill Duggar said.