Republican voters in South Carolina just don’t like Mitt Romney. In a party where people who don’t fit the ideological mold are heretics, Romney’s constant policy reversals from left to right have made him anathema to a large segment of the voting population. His debating skills, on display twice this week, are lackluster at best. His Mormonism isn’t helping him any either. Exit polls from South Carolina show that one of the few groups Romney won were voters who said they were not born-again Christians. Since that’s a key part of the base, Mitt has a big problem on his hands.The unlikely recipient of the anyone-but-Romney tsunami was Newt Gingrich.
By any measure, Gingrich is one of the most flawed candidates ever. But to South Carolina voters, he’s the only true conservative they think can beat Obama. This despite—or possibly because of—the accusation just three days before the primary that Gingrich asked his second wife for an open marriage, so he could continue his six-year affair with his mistress (now wife No. 3).
Gingrich now emerges as the only credible (insert guffaw here) alternative to Romney. Goodbye, Rick Santorum. The vote comes at a time when Romney’s national numbers are collapsing and his inevitability train jumped the tracks. Just as interesting is that Republican voters have completely unmoored themselves from reality by concluding that Newt is also the stronger candidate in the general election. The general unease that the party faithful have always felt about Romney has turned into full-fledged disgust. Romney may be able to salvage the nomination yet, but to do so he’s going to have to pander long and hard to the evangelical base. And just one guess who is going to be on the receiving end of that rhetoric. In the meantime, we’re in for weeks of a campaign (next stop Florida) that will be simultaneously appalling and entertaining.
photo via Gage Skidmore, AddictingInfo.org
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j
John, good job! Really enjoying your coverage (this almost sounds like an innuendo…). 🙂
corvidae
This article made me lol. Thanks.
Right Is Right
As a Republican (or, I’m sorry, in the words of Queerty liberals, a “rethuglican”, ha ha ha ha so very funny), I assert that yes, Romney will eventually end up with the nomination—and rightfully so, since he is the most moderate. But Gingrich’s SC win was because he abso-fucking-lutely stole the show Saturday. In the opening, he smacked down the liberal media and left the moderator, who’d attempted a “gotcha” question, speechless. Newt’s in-your-face honesty is a virtue, but it won’t get him elected president.
m
@Right Is Right: Newt’s honesty? LOL! You’ve got to be kidding. Multiple affairs, ethics violations, his work as a “historian”… he’s a poster child for the art of deceit. I’m not a fan of most Republicans but he’s a joke. If he’s the best they can do, they’re in trouble.
MikeE
this whole “born again christians” thing would be funny if it weren’t so sad, and dangerous.
how many of these very same Americans are apt to call the Taliban “the bad guys” because of they try to impose their religious views on others? And yet, these same “born again christians” are doing the exact same thing.
The irony, the hypocrisy, the sheer delusion of it all…
the other Greg
Best line of the SC campaign: The SC Democratic chairman said, “the Republicans are now the Almond Joy Party. Sometimes they feel like a nut, sometimes they don’t!”
This works, except that the Mounds bar (Mitt) is still coco-“nut”…
jeff
Well if the evangelicals voted for Newt then they have lost all credibility and must now accept gays and lesbians. Why would anyone vote for this racist, homophobic hypocrite douchebag. I think if he becomes the GOP nominee then Obama will win for sure cuz most hate Gingrich.
Shannon1981
I live in South Carolina. I was born an raised, here, save my 7 years in New York and California. Cant wait to return to California. This state blows. Know why they hate him? He’s not a die hard racist, anti- semtic evangelical. If you aren’t a completely racist, homophobic, anti- semitic hater, you aren’t good enough for these people. Never mind Newt’s transgressions against his former wives. Just since he is filled with enough hate for the same groups he hates, they are happy. Never mind the shit that really matters. Have enough hate, and South Carolina rethuglican’ts will love you.
Kick the south out of the union
I can’t wait to see what the Florida retards are going to do. Florida is such a shithole, its really sad because it was once a nice place to live.
bluechip244
I am having so much fun watching this comedy from the sidelines. The Republicans are imploding before my eyes. It is amazing. Almost everyone gets a chance to be at the top (Cain, Mrs. B, Perry) and then down they go!
RVH
@Right Is Right: I can’t believe you actually wrote “Newt’s in-your-face honesty.” You Republicans are dumber than I thought.
Josh in OR
Personally, I think Bill Maher said it best: “It’s now down to Romney vs. Gingrich…Alien vs. Predator…”
Cam
@Right Is Right: said…
“”In the opening, he smacked down the liberal media and left the moderator, who’d attempted a “gotcha” question, speechless.””
________________________-
Do you even know what a “Gotcha” question is? It is a question that exposes something about the person, or exposes something the person doesn’t want to talk about.
So the problem is, you can’t pretend to get angry about a question that exposes NEWT’s hypocricy and the way he treated his wives, so you have to try to hide that fact by calling it something else. A “Gotcha” question. Sara Palin would have sounded like an idiot if she ran around crying that Katie Courick had asked her what she read, but she CAN run around attacking Courick for asking “Gotcha” questions because once something has been labeled they are free from having to explain it.
You claim to be a republican. Well lets see, NEWT is opposed to gay rights, he is hypocritical when it comes to religion, he is NOT for smaller govt shown by the fact that he was keeping regulators off of Freddie Mac’s back after they paid him millions, even though other republicans were trying to go after them. His own party kicked him out of the speakers seat and brought down ethics charges against him.
So again, just what is it about NEWT that you think balances out the fact that he wants to take away your civil rights? And don’t blather on with the smaller govt. lower taxes thing, NEWT has already proven he doesn’t want any part of that.
Wesley Horace
nope the headline is wrong. i think a 12 point margin of victory for newt the highest victory of all the primaries so far in the biggest state yet, clearly means that the people of south carolina are all bigots like newt. not that they hate mitt.
JEREMIE
That is one scary ass, pasty, scary looking couple. Wow.
JEREMIE
@JEREMIE: meant pastety
Shannon1981
@Wesley Horace: You’re right, they are all bigots like Newt. Though TBH, I am surprised it was Newt and not Frothy, the biggest bigot of them all..
LandStander
I just had to LOL at the “gotcha questions”, and people claiming that his past transgressions do not really matter…
You are right that a candidates personal life is really none of our business, particularly when it involves what is going on in their bedroom. This holds true for all politicians, EXCEPT for those who make their political career espousing to “defend marriage from those terrible homos”. You automatically give up the right to have your marriage be off limits to questions, when you claim to be defending the institution from something else.
When you say that gay people should not be able to get married because they will ruin marriage as we know it, you cannot just claim “gotcha questions” when someone is asking you about the two times you divorced your disease-ridden spouses and asked one for an open marriage.
Now if Newt Gingrich instead said, on the subject of marriage “It is really none of my business of Joe and Greg want to get married, I wish them the best of luck.” My response to his story would be “that is really none of my business, it is his own life.” As it stands though, he is throwing stones from a hypocritical glass house, saying his twisted life is holier then mine could ever be when I’m in love with a man.
Cam
@LandStander:
Amen!
Right Is Right
As the above posts reflect, the gay community is shockingly overflowing with hate hate hate hate hate hate hate. Whatever happened to being open to diversity? Apparently, that only applies when the person of diversity agrees 100% with your politics. It’s humorous to realize that you would throw me, a fellow gay man, under the bus just because you disagree with me politically. I guess gay solidarity just went out the window.
Shannon1981
@Right Is Right: It isn’t about disagreeing with politics. Its about you being an Uncle Tom and voting against your own civil rights.
Your screen name says it all. “right is right.” The only right side in this equation is the left.
Cam
@Right Is Right: said….
“As the above posts reflect, the gay community is shockingly overflowing with hate hate hate hate hate hate hate. Whatever happened to being open to diversity? Apparently, that only applies when the person of diversity agrees 100% with your politics. It’s humorous to realize that you would throw me, a fellow gay man, under the bus just because you disagree with me politically. I guess gay solidarity just went out the window.”
_______
Thats funny, I asked you flat out What was it about Gingrich that made you want to vote for him in spite of his views on gay civil rights, then I pointed out that you can’t claim it is small govt. etc… because he has already proven he doesn’t care about that.
The interesting part about it, is that since you were obviously unable to answer the question you just tried to deflect everything and play the victim, claiming that you were being attacked with “Hate”.
Don’t complain that there is no gay solidarity when you are advocating the election of somebody who has specifically stated that people interested in gay rights shouldn’t vote for him, that they should “Vote for Obama”.
He has made it clear that a vote for him is an attack on gay rights. And yet, rather than answering a straightforward question about your reasons for voting for a man with these beliefs, you are trying to doge and avoid and cry victim…ANYTHING to avoid having to explain your opinion.
Here is another chance, same question, why vote for a man that has stated flat out he is against gay rights? And again, don’t claim smaller govt. since Gingrich already was caught shielding Freddie Mac from much needed oversite.
Interesting
I think its virtually a certain that President Obama will win a second term. Gay rights has little or nothing to do with it. We care about it. The public is more concerned about economic issues. Obama is a sellout on those issues like the rest of the Democrats and the entire GOP is. Selling us out to the banks rather than protecting the public from the predators. But, the Democrats can rest on nostalgia about what the party once were, where as the GOP clown car are saying “it gets worse” as a campaign promise of what policies they hope to pass. I mean- who honestly babbles on about how cutting jobs is a good thing in the middle of one of the worst economic down terms in American history? The GOP problem is that its base is nuts. Not just kind of sort of nuts. But ape throwing shit at the wall nuts. So, in a battle between lesser evils- its Obama. Oh,a nd if Newt is the nominee (and may be even with Romney) I predict that the GOP loses the House and loses seats in the Senate as well. This is not including the state races that he will help the party loses. The conservatives in the U.S. under the Tea Party has overreached.
Isaac C
@Cam: In the end, people should be allowed to vote for who they like for the reasons they believe in. Just because RiR is gay, and Newt is against gay rights, doesn’t mean he should have to vote for Obama or anyone else just because they’re “pro-gay.”
RVH
@Right Is Right: Your whimpering response is that of a typical know-nothing right-winger. You can’t justify your support for Gingrich, not to mention your absurd statement that people like him for his honesty, so of course everyone who posed those questions are haters. It reminds me of how Sarah Palin whined about how everyone was ‘bullying’ her because they pointed out the fact that she was probably the most vapid candidate for national office this country has ever seen.
Margie
Great article! I LMAO. I can’t STAND Newt Gingrich OR Mitt Romney! And, I’m a Mormon and conservative-light.
Margie
@jeff: No matter who gets the nomination Obama will win. That’s a given! I don’t like the guy, but I can accept reality ; )
Gus
@Right Is Right: The Republican definition of a “gotcha question”: Any question the candidate does not want to answer.
Daez
@Right Is Right: Sorry, but they didn’t throw you under the bus. There were absolutely no personal attacks against you. They simply pointed out where you were wrong about Newt being the upstanding pillar of the community.
In other news, your ability to assume you are always the victim and to back people that outwardly and openly hate you while attack people that love you for who you are speaks volumes about your psyche.
@Isaac C: You are 100% correct, but they should also be able to defend why they believe in that candidate which is something that Right has not done here although he has been given two different chances. Since this is a gay blog, and he is openly backing an anti-gay candidate, its very reasonable to ask him to explain it.
@Margie: Problem is, people are getting tired of Obama. This is not a guaranteed election for him. It quite possibly could end his term of president. It will come down to the actual election contest and who does better in the debates and presents better ideas for stimulating the economy. Also, if the economy takes a downturn between now and election day, Obama doesn’t have a chance in hell of being reelected.
Right Is Right
I get such a kick out of watching gay people go ballistic over a politician who isn’t openly pro-gay. And yet your own guy, Obama, isn’t pro-gay. You may want to believe he is (because what good liberal doesn’t believe everything he’s told?), but the only thing he’s done for us is pander to us for donations and votes. DADT? Not his plan—the Democrats forced his hand, and he was dragged kicking and screaming into signing it. Gay marriage? He wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole.
Whomever I support, it won’t be for love of my own sexuality and self-interest, it’ll be for my love of the country.
delurker
@Right Is Right: So people who disagree with you, “hate” you? Are you done nailing yourself to the cross yet? LOL Whiny conservative victimhood strikes again! ::eye roll::
delurker
Let me just state now for the record it will be fun to see the crazy reactions on the far left and right when Obama wins re-election this November. 🙂
Right Is Right
@delurker: What’s really funny is that no one on this site has addressed the comment I made—that Gingrich slammed the media in grand fashion. I never said I liked the man, never said I’d vote for him, never said I support his personal lifestyle. And the “hate” speech I mentioned was in reference to Gingrich being called “bigot, scary-looking, racist, homophobic, hypocritical” and on and on—it had nothing to do with anyone disagreeing with me, since I always welcome (rational) dissent. But without any proof to back these statements up, it’s just more liberal mud-slinging in an attempt to distract voters’ attention. How very novel. Just don’t go putting words in my mouth, guys. It may make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but on the outside you just come across as petulant and ugly.
drewa24
Newt and Ricky have at least one ghoulish characteristic in common, they both like to play with dead things. Has his whore/wife been embalmed?
Cam
@Right Is Right: said…
“@delurker: What’s really funny is that no one on this site has addressed the comment I made—that Gingrich slammed the media in grand fashion.”
_______________
Actually I addressed that comment in a post that you responded to but chose to ignore that portion of.
You also, have ignored my repeated questions of “Why, with Gingrich’s views on gay rights, and the fact that he has taken huge sums from the govt. trough negating any indication that he is for cutting spending or shrinking govt, do you support him and seem happy about his success?
So again, I responded to your comments about the press, pointing out how you attemted to label any question he didn’t like as a “Gotcha” question and yet were unable to point out why it was a bad question.
AND I asked you more than once the direct question about why you are so happy about his success seeing as how he is against gay rights, and does not embody the ideals that many republicans claim to want, smaller govt. less spending etc..
the other Greg
@Right Is Right: “Gingrich slammed the media in grand fashion.” That’s the part I don’t get. Let me get this straight – one of Newt’s ex-wives thinks he’s an asshole, and wants to tell this to the media… but it’s not Newt’s fault for being an asshole (if it’s true) and it’s not even her fault for being a vindictive bitch (if she is)… in the alternate conservo-universe it’s somehow the media’s fault just for… REPORTING it verbatim?
The funny thing is, Fox News and Rush Limbaugh have been talking a lot about it too – because they hate Newt and want Mitt, and they’re starting to panic and get desperate – so apparently it’s not just the “lamestream media” but a conspiracy of all media everywhere… oooooh, scary!
delurker
@Right Is Right: None of those terms you mentioned are “hate speech.” That’s really weak sauce you got there. I knew conservatives were none-too-bright, but this is ridiculous! 😉
M Worth
As a Brit, let me just say that this primary is shaping up to be highly comedic and we across the pond are relishing the idea of inbred, extreme right-wing fundamentalists tear each other apart :’) So glad Newt won SC, it means this battle is going to long, protracted and incredibly nasty, and will obviously give Obama huge amounts of ammunition to use against the eventual winner (hopefully Newt, because he doesn’t stand a chance in hell).
Here’s hoping your country doesn’t become a right-wing hellhole like mine!
Right Is Right
@delurker: If calling someone you’ve never met derogatory names with no proof isn’t hate speech, then we obviously have different ideas of what “hate” is. I bet if I referred to you as an ugly misogynistic racist who makes fun of fat people, you’d think that was hateful.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m guessing the only “hate speech” in your vocabulary involves the word “fag.” Everything else is just “opinion.”