Santorum intends to campaign for Romney

Rosemont, Illinois (CNN) -- Rick Santorum emerged from a stretch of public silence on Friday, May 8th, and previewed his political future: revealing his intention to campaign for former rival Mitt Romney, admitting he has not released his delegates to this summer's Republican National Convention and announcing that he'll stay politically active through a political committee.

Although Santorum has endorsed Romney and has pledged to defeat President Obama, one comment Santorum made to reporters suggested that political wounds sustained during the Republican primary are not entirely healed.

When asked about his slams during the primary that Romney is too moderate and out of touch with working class voters, Santorum explained that he was looking at "the relative strengths and weaknesses of the candidates."

But as he called Romney a "tremendous improvement" from President Obama, Santorum added: "As I said during the campaign, I think we could have been even more of an improvement. But that issue is passed."

Santorum's comments came as he spoke to reporters just before taking the stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Chicago. The former presidential candidate dropped his bid for the White House in April, scaling back his public presence.

At the beginning of the question and answer exchange, Santorum was asked if he intends to campaign with Romney.

"I'll be going out and stumping for candidates all over the country including Gov. Romney," the former Pennsylvania senator said. "And we are going to go out and talk about the issues that were important to the folks who voted for us and I think are important, central issues to the country."

Has he worked out specific plans of where and when he'll campaign with Romney or on his behalf, Santorum was asked?

"We've done a few things already at the request of the Romney campaign, focused primarily on state conventions and caucuses where we try to encourage our folks to work together and to make sure that we're unified going into the convention," Santorum said.

Also regarding this summer's Republican National Convention in Tampa, Santorum said he has not released his delegates who will attend.

"I haven't done anything as far as releasing anybody," Santorum said. "I want to make sure that our delegates have an opportunity to come. Many of these folks were great volunteers and workers for us. And I want to make sure that they have the opportunity to experience that convention."

"I certainly have encouraged everyone to support Gov. Romney as I have. But there are a lot of other issues at a convention than just voting for a nominee," Santorum added.

Santorum currently has 266 pledged delegates, according to CNN's count.

The former presidential candidate also discussed a recent meeting he had with RNC chairman Reince Priebus.

"We didn't talk specifically about any kind of slot. We just wanted to make sure that our delegates from here in Illinois and Wisconsin and other places were treated well and given the same opportunity as other delegates."

"At the same time, I offered whatever I can do to be helpful at the convention. That's for the RNC and for Gov. Romney to decide who's going to speak and when they're going to speak. If I'm on the speaking list that's a great thing. If not, that's fine too."

Earlier Friday, Santorum laid out his political future, announcing the formation of a political committee to advance issues he cares about. The nonprofit organization, Patriot Voices, will also work to elect Romney.

--CNN's Kevin Liptak contributed to this report

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