Olathe ? Republican Gov. Sam Brownback tried to re-energize his campaign Monday by drawing on the support of his one-time colleague in the U.S. Senate, former presidential candidate Rick Santorum, of Pennsylvania.

Speaking to a crowd of supporters, as well as to some teachers who showed up to protest, Santorum said traditional American values are under assault, and he argued that Brownback is the candidate who would stand up to defend them.

“The thing that fired me up to come here is that a man with his record, with his integrity, with his vision and love for this state is even having a race in the state of Kansas,” Santorum said. “This shouldn’t be a race. We all need to get to it.”

Rick Santorum, right, a former U.S. senator and Republican presidential candidate, was in Kansas Monday campaigning for Gov. Sam Brownback. The two served together in the Senate from 1996 until 2007.

The rally in Olathe was held at Cars4Less, a used car dealership that the Brownback campaign held up as an example of the success of the Republican-sponsored tax cuts enacted during his administration. Campaign officials said the tax cuts had enabled it to expand its operations and add more jobs.

State Rep. Paul Davis of Lawrence, the presumptive Democratic nominee, has argued that those tax cuts have not stimulated the economy and will leave the state with a huge budget deficit within two or three years.

But Santorum focused his remarks more on social and religious issues, saying traditional values in America are under assault from political forces on the left.

“People don’t think America can be lost,” Santorum said. “If you look at what’s going on in our court system, look at what’s going on in the Congress, and the president with his executive orders … And you don’t realize what’s happening.”

Also appearing at the rally was Sen. Pat Roberts, a three-term incumbent who faces a primary challenge this year from Tea Party-backed candidate Milton Wolf. In his own remarks, Roberts repeated the theme of American values being under attack.

“There is a palpable fear in America and in Kansas … that the America that we love and we cherish and we honor and we profit from is in such a state that it will not be the same America for our kids and grandkids,” Roberts said. “That is the issue of the day.”

Three of the four public polls that have been conducted so far in the campaign show Brownback trailing Davis. The most recent, an automated poll conducted by SurveyUSA, showed Brownback trailing by 6 percentage points, 47-41 percent.

Brownback said the news media were partly to blame for his campaign struggling. He said a record number of people are now working in Kansas, and he repeated his claim — which many education advocates dispute — that he has increased “total” education funding each year of his administration.

But he said most of the news stories about his administration have been negative, adding: “We’re not getting a lot of good reporting from the Kansas City Star.”

Also attending the rally, however, were about two dozen teachers in red T-shirts who heckled at some of the remarks. Afterwards, most said they were not impressed by the speeches.

They have been showing up routinely at most of Brownback’s public events this summer to protest his signing a bill to repeal teacher tenure rights, as well as the cuts in base state aid to schools that have been enacted during his administration.

Steve Stemmerman, a special education teacher at Liberty Memorial Central Middle School in Lawrence, made the trip to Olathe to see the rally and said he thought Santorum injected too much religion into the campaign.

“He wasn’t explaining why things were good for Brownback, just saying that if you have religious conviction, you need to vote for him without any substance behind it,” Stemmerman said.

But Republican activists left the rally feeling enthused.

Yvonne Starks: “I thought it was marvelous,” said Yvonne Starks, a Brownback supporter from Olathe. “I thought it was very important for the American people, the Kansan people, to realize that we have to stop them. We have to stand up, speak up. We have to work. We have to fight back.”