Uh-oh.

Now it’s Rick Santorum’s chance to step in the “I-hate-capitalism” cow pie that Newt Gingrich has just managed to step out of.

Here’s the headline, unfortunate as it is, from National Journal, plus the key quote and the link. 

Santorum: Romney’s Tax Rate Isn’t the Problem, His Perception of $300,000 Is

[…]

“To make a statement that I made a couple of extra bucks giving speeches when that couple of extra bucks was over $300,000 — I mean, that to me says a little bit more about Governor Romney and his connection with the American people than his tax rate,” Santorum said.

Amazing, no?

When Mitt Romney answered a question as to his income from speaking fees, he answered that he had made over $362,000. In the course of his answer, Romney said it was “not very much.”

As Rush Limbaugh pointed out today, Bill Clinton has made some $82 million — that’s $82 million!!!! — in speaking fees during the last six years. In other words, as Rick Santorum should well understand, in terms of the free market for celebrity speeches, Mitt Romney has earned almost nothing.

But that isn’t the point, is it? The point is the free market. And whether Romney earned X from Bain Capital or Z from speeches — every last dime is related to a free market. For Santorum — whose losing Senate margin in Pennsylvania came in part because he was hammered for living in a mansion-sized house in Virginia instead of a modest Pittsburgh suburb — to implicitly buy into the anti-free market rhetoric that was just back firing on Gingrich leaves one speechless.

Who cares how much Mitt Romney earned from speeches? Who cares about the size or location of Rick Santorum’s house? Only those who in some fashion buy into the leftist attacks on the free market and capitalism. 

In the immortal words of Cher in Moonstruck, Santorum would be well advised to: “Snap out of it!”

Rick Santorum is playing in left field. He should get back within bounds.