Rick Santorum and "bla-" vs. "black"

I finally got around to looking into this claim that Rick Santorum intimated that blacks tend to be on welfare with his comments during a campaign stop in Iowa.

I know it's all the rage to portray every Republican as racist, but this example just doesn't wash.  Let's assume that Santorum said "black" and try to make sense of his statement.

Via CBS (edited to leave only Santorum's words):

"It just keeps expanding - I was in Indianola a few months ago and I was talking to someone who works in the department of public welfare here, and she told me that the state of Iowa is going to get fined if they don't sign up more people under the Medicaid program.  They're just pushing harder and harder to get more and more of you dependent upon them so they can get your vote. That's what the bottom line is.  I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money; I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money."

It's been pointed out that Santorum was speaking to an audience of white people.  In Iowa, that den of racism (I'm kidding, Iowa).  And that's why the comment, contextually, doesn't make sense if he's saying "black."  Santorum just got through saying "They're just pushing harder and harder to get more and more of you dependent upon them so they can get your vote."  More of "you."  He was addressing his audience, which represented Iowa.  "Black" doesn't fit the context.  "Black" mainly fits as some sort of Freudian slip letting his fellow racists in Iowa know where he stands on race (still kidding, Iowa).

Granted, I have no idea what Santorum meant to say.  It's possible he meant to say "blacks" despite the fact that it doesn't fit the context.  But the times I've heard him say "blacks" he enunciates it more clearly than in the Iowa video.