Washington ( CNN ) -- For months now , the GOP has been complaining about Barack Obama 's class warfare : He 's pitting the wealthy against the middle class . He 's unfairly asking the rich to pay more taxes . He 's dividing the country along economic lines for his own political agenda . But wait . Has anybody looked at what 's going on in the GOP lately ? Can it be that class warfare is alive and thriving among Republicans ? Sure looks that way . How else to explain Rick Santorum calling the president a `` snob '' for emphasizing the importance of a college education ? And when Santorum says that John F. Kennedy 's speech about the absolute separation between church and state made him want to `` throw up , '' he 's not exactly aiming for the academic theologians . In the meantime , Mitt Romney -- that establishment fellow -- is out there on the trail talking about his wife driving `` a couple '' of Cadillacs . Not to mention the fact that he knows the owners , not the drivers , of NASCAR teams . Contrast that to Santorum 's venture into the Daytona 500 : His campaign is sponsoring a car , not hobnobbing with team owners . Looks like the GOP is driving around some circular tracks of its own , would n't you say ? In many ways , this detour into class distinctions is n't surprising ; it 's actually been percolating for years . Remember when Republicans first spoke about the `` Sam 's Club '' members of their party -- that is , their working-class , socially conservative demographic ? They were onto something . In fact , the less-educated , white voters have been shifting toward the GOP for some time -- and have given the party much of its grass-roots energy . So in scurries Rick Santorum , trying to differentiate himself from Romney and fill the populist void . As it turns out , it 's pretty easy : He 's the guy from blue-collar Pennsylvania , the grandson of a coal miner . And Romney is a member of the business elite , a platinum card-carrying member of the GOP establishment , son of a scion of the party . Better yet , Romney keeps reminding voters ( inadvertently ) that he 's not like them , each time he tries to connect with the Average Joe . `` It may be important for a voter to be able to relate to a president , '' a senior Santorum adviser told me . `` But it 's more important for a president to be able to relate to that voter . '' So Santorum is trying to relate to every anti-Romney voter . In Michigan , for instance , evangelicals could account for as much as half of the GOP primary electorate . And Santorum figures he 's getting them pretty well locked up with his church-and-state talk . As for those who self-identify as strongly conservative , he figures he 's handing them red meat with his chatter about Barack Obama 's snobbery -- and Romney 's flip-flopping on conservative issues . `` We have a long and storied track record of fighting for conservative causes compared to the other candidate who is running here in Michigan at the top of the polls , '' said Santorum . `` We have a clear difference between someone who has fought in the trenches of the country for conservative causes . '' Santorum 's attacks on Romney just expose the huge chasm within the GOP between the old elite and the new insurgents . And no matter who becomes the nominee , one faction will be disappointed , and disaffected . The question that remains : whether their dislike of Obama can bring the unity that has so far eluded them . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Gloria Borger .
Ann Borger says now it 's the Republicans who are playing class warfare . She notes that the Republicans attacked President Obama for ` ` class warfare '' on taxes . Rick Santorum is trying to make the case that he is middle class , she says . Romney : Santorum trying to differentiate himself from Romney , who is much richer .