As I write this, Republicans are voting in New Hampshire. So by the time you read this, Rick Santorum's presidential aspirations might be toast.

One can hope.

Nonetheless, and even though writing about Santorum two weeks in a row is more ink than he deserves, I was struck earlier this month by Santorum's anti-college rant.

Campaigning in New Hampshire, Santorum ripped President Obama for saying that all kids should go to college. Which, for the record, Obama never said — though he has asked "every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training."

Here's Santorum:

"Who are you? Who are you to say that every child in America go ... I mean the hubris of this president to think that he knows what's best for you. ... I have seven kids. Maybe they'll all go to college. But, if one of my kids wants to go and be an auto mechanic, good for him. That's a good-paying job — using your hands and using your mind. This is the kind of, the kind of snobbery that we see from those who think they know how to run our lives. Rise up America. Defend your own freedoms."

Facepalm.

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This is so Santorum — so conservative, really. Because there's the nub of an actual argument buried in there; but as is so often the case with Santorum and his brethren on the right, it's bathed in so much Obama hatred, it's practically unrecognizable.

Obama isn't calling on people to go to school because he's a snob. He's calling on people to go to school because the evolving nature of our economy means that those with less education are going to fall behind unless they become better-educated, highly skilled workers.

Here's where there might be a legitimate debate, if the likes of Santorum were capable of making a case: Neither this country, nor any country, can become a place where all workers are educated and highly skilled. There are huge numbers of people in America who do not have the financial or intellectual wherewithal to get a degree and/or become a highly skilled worker.

And what becomes of those people in our shiny new "knowledge" economy?

Once upon a time in America, there were plenty of good-paying jobs for lower skilled workers. Now — as chronicled ably and frighteningly by Adam Davidson in this month's Atlantic Monthly magazine —  those opportunities are disappearing. Due to competitive pressures on American manufacturers, globalization and advances in technology, one in three American factory jobs has disappeared in the last 12 years alone.

"In older factories and, before them, on the farm, there were opportunities for almost everybody: the bright and the slow, the sociable and the awkward, the people with children and those without," Davidson wrote. Today, in an economy where knowledge and skill is so vital, "Those with the right ability and circumstances will, most likely, make the right adjustments, get the right skills, and eventually thrive," Davidson continued. "But I fear that those who are challenged now will only fall further behind."

Obama, then, believes higher education a necessity because it may be the only way for those in what we once called the "working class" to get ahead.

We can argue about whether this should be the case, or what can be done (if anything) to create legitimate, good-paying jobs for unskilled laborers.

But instead, Santorum wants to make this an argument about snobbery. He wants this to be about Obama trying to tell you what to do. Freedom! Tyranny!

Depressing, but typical. Somewhere, in the deep recesses of Rick Santorum's gray matter, an actual argument struggles to escape.

Too bad it has to yield to a steady stream of nonsense.

Gil Smart is associate editor of the Sunday News. Email him at gsmart@lnpnews.com, or phone 291-8817.