Will Mitt Romney use Rick Santorum's tax returns against him? (+video)

Rick Santorum Wednesday night released to Politico four years of personal tax returns, covering 2007 through 2010. That’s more 1040s than either Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich have made public.

But commitment to disclosure isn’t the only issue here. Do Mr. Santorum’s personal finances, as detailed in the returns, say anything interesting about him as a candidate for president?

Well, political applicability is in the eye of the beholder. But some things struck us during a preliminary study of the documents.

Santorum's rich

The former Pennsylvania Senator earned more than $3.6 million over the period in question. That’s not nearly what Gingrich made from his various business enterprises, and Romney probably has employees that earn that much. But in the context of the nation as a whole Santorum is part of the 1 percent.

Santorum himself downplays his newly-disclosed wealth, pointing out that among other things he’s lost a lot of wealth from a drop in the value of his real estate, and he has large expenses for the care of a special needs child.

“I worked very hard – in many cases six or seven jobs a year,” said Santorum during a Wednesday night appearance on Piers Morgan’s talk show on CNN.

Much of it's Washington money

Santorum‘s post-Senate income is dependent on the connections he made in the nation’s capital. For instance, he was paid $65,000 by the American Continental Group, a D.C. lobbying firm, according to an Associated Press analysis. He made $125,000 from the Clapham Group, a Virginia firm that helps religious rights organizations in D.C.

As for corporate connections, he made $142,500 as a consultant to Consul Energy, a Pennsylvania firm with coal mine holdings. In 2009 and 2010, Santorum earned a total of $1.37 million in media appearance and consulting fees paid through his own Excelsior LLC.

His tax rate's higher than Romney's

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