Rick Santorum has been crazy for years. Romney can't fake that. (Steve Nesius/Reuters)

Rick Santorum has been crazy for years. Romney can't fake that. (Steve Nesius/Reuters)

“Remember, the greatest generation for a year and a half, sat on the sidelines while Europe was under darkness, while our closest ally, Britain, was being bombed and leveled, while Japan was spreading its cancer all throughout Southeast Asia,” Santorum ominously told a packed, enthusiastic crowd at the First Redeemer Church in Cummings, Ga., Sunday, before traveling back to Ohio to campaign here today. [...] “We’re a hopeful people,” he continued. “We think, well, you know it’ll get better. After a while you find out some things about this guy over in Europe who’s not so good of a guy after all. … Sometimes, sometimes it’s not OK."

While Santorum conceded that Obama’s policies were not quite as horrific as Hitler’s war in Europe, the rising GOP front-runner cautioned that the president is “fundamentally restructuring America.”

Did all the Republican candidates take a Stupid Pill this morning? If not, what the hell is going on? Now Rick My-Jesus-is-Better-Than-Yours Santorum is comparing Barack Obama to Hitler So we're already to the point in the campaign where the non-Republican guy is Hitler, now. Hell, I thought they'd be able to hold out at least until April or so, but no—that Hitler analogy was burning a hole in his pocket, it just had to come out.Other things that Republicans consider to be like Hitler: Birth control. Tax rates under Ronald Reagan. Newfangled light bulbs. It's a very, very big list.

Apparently this isn't a slip of the tongue on Santorum's part, it's an actual new campaign talking point. The geniuses of the Santorum campaign actually planned it out, and he's used it in other recent speeches. Go vote for me, he says, because it's just like fighting Hitler.

I guess the usual dog whistles just don't cut it anymore. We've got Newt Gingrich saying to vote for him or everybody dies, and now we've got Rick Santorum saying if you don't buy on to his pseudo-Christian plan for consolidation of broad moral powers by the state it'll be like voting for Hitler. (Also figuring into Santorum's stump speeches is comparisons to the French Revolution and guillotines, but the campaign may have decided that was a bit too highbrow for his crowds.) I can't wait to see how Mitt Romney responds, given that they've really given him no room left on the top of the ol' crazy scale.

Before the South Carolina primaries the Republicans appeared to do their level best to appeal to racists in the state, apparently figuring that was their core voting block. It seems they've decided the core voting block in the next few states is crazy backwoods militia types who see the seeds of World War III in everything from nickels to traffic lights.