Rick Santorum gets ready to cash in on the lecture circuit

(Rick Wilking/Reuters) Failed U.S. senator and failed Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum is hitting the lecture circuit to spread his values to the masses make a boatload of money. Santorum has signed up with an agency and is expecting to make $40,000 to $50,000 per speech.

Santorum's agency bills him as "a passionate champion of America's founding principles" whose "impressive presidential campaign positioned him as a leading voice of the Republican Party." Or he's a guy who lost his Senate seat by a dumbfounding margin whose presidential campaign was propped up by a single billionaire's Super PAC money and was ultimately too poorly organized to capitalize on Mitt Romney's tepid support.

A social issues speech in which Santorum "will chronicle his battles for the dignity of all human life, his effort to protect traditional marriage and his struggle to reverse Hollywood's and the main stream media's onslaught against virtue," seems likely to become one of the great disco hits of $50,000 Republican speeches. But hilariously, Buzzfeed points out:

That speech bears the perhaps unfortunate'though obviously unintended'title, "The Dawn of an American Renaissance," sharing its name with a conservative publication widely viewed as racist.

Obviously unintended'Rick Santorum never blew a dog whistle in his life. Meanwhile, Santorum's idea of a renaissance is to take the nation backward to intolerance and trying to deny the dignity of some people's lives and loves, and one of America's two major political parties is on board with that agenda to the tune of $40,000-$50,000 a hit. Awesome.