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BEXLEY, Ohio -- Mitt Romney raced to seize the early momentum in Ohio ahead of Super Tuesday, with two events Wednesday that allowed him to show his softer side. Meanwhile, his chief rival, Rick Santorum, spent the day in Tennessee.

Though Santorum begins the week before voting with a nearly double-digit lead in the RealClearPolitics polling average for Ohio, Romney has a pair of fresh wins under his belt -- Arizona and Michigan -- which put a new spring in his step as he campaigned in this suburb of Columbus, the state’s most populous city.

He started out on-message, getting into the weeds of economic issues like taxes, trade and government regulations. And he mentioned Santorum by name just once, using essentially the same attack line that he typically directs at President Obama: "Rick Santorum is a nice guy, but he's an economic lightweight."

But he stayed away from the more right-wing rhetoric he had adopted in recent days, and also opened up a little bit about who he is personally.

A young girl at a town-hall meeting at Capital University asked what he'd like to be remembered for, to which Romney answered: "I want to be known as a great father." He waxed poetic about his five sons and talked of his own father at some length before saying that if he's lucky enough to be president, he wanted to be remembered for helping the American people.

The very next questioner complained that the news media has portrayed Romney as a cold man without a heart. The questioner said he knew that wasn't true and so asked the candidate to talk about what's in his heart.

Romney joked that it has been hard for the public to get to know him through the 20 debates he's endured in the Republican primary contest. The contenders on stage, he said, all wear blue suits, black shoes, red ties and look alike, he said to laughter, adding that each gets only 60 seconds to explain "how you would bring peace to the world."

But the former Massachusetts governor, who continually dotes on his wife, Ann, offered a personal glimpse of himself: "By far the most important thing in my life is my wife." He said her happiness is what he cares about more than "anything in the world."

He said he worried over the illness she developed in the 1990s, multiple sclerosis, and how it would impact her life span. And he got gushy talking about the joys of having grandchildren, joking, "You don't have to change their diapers, and they love you."

And Romney, who has tried to steer clear of talking about his religious faith throughout the race -- except to say that it provides constancy in his life -- acknowledged that Mormonism “is an unusual religion in a number of respects." One of those ways, he said, is that pastors are selected from the congregation, and the position is neither permanent nor paid. Romney said he served in such a role part time for about 10 years. 

Romney has been chided before for talking about his love of hunting even though he's done it only a few times, but when talking about the Second Amendment, he told voters Wednesday: "I have guns myself. I'm not going to tell you where they are."

That comment set off a scramble among the press to determine if he in fact owns guns, since he has said before that he doesn't. Since a much-derided remark in 2007 about his penchant for hunting "small varmints," Romney has partaken of the sport several times. During a South Carolina debate in January, he said he had hunted elk and pheasant, and that “when I get invited I’m delighted to be able to go hunting.”