Newt Gingrich
Last night's second (third?) coming of Newt Gingrich strongly suggests that the GOP 2012 campaign is actually in full scale freak out mode now.

Commentators swear that the base accepts Mitt Romney scores better nationally, but they're angry and they won't let him have the nomination without a fight. I've heard that contention but it doesn't quite ring true.

Because, I mean, if a place like South Carolina can hold its nose and vote for a publicly disgraced serial adulterer with more skeletons in his closet than a Hammer Horror film, we really must have entered a new political age.

And in that new age the religious credibility of 'values voters' has vanished in a perfumed cloud of mistresses.
-----------------
Read more: 
More news on US politics from IrishCentral

Leading priest predicts the end of celibacy in the Catholic Church

National Irish Coffee Day – how do you make the perfect Irish cocktail?
-----------------
I was amazed, for the first five minutes, but then I noticed that the the tag #sanctityofopenmarriage was trending on Twitter and I couldn't stop laughing.

Why? Because now we'll never have to listen again to another South Carolinian 'values voter' scold us for our lack of moral fiber, that's for sure. And we certainly won't ever have to listen to Gingrich himself promoting 'traditional values.'

Some commentators tried to imagine what he's sound like if he even tried: 'I believe marriage is between a man and a woman and a woman and a woman?' quipped one. 'I believe in open marriage but not gay marriage!' jeered another.

Laughter was everywhere in the Twitterverse last night. It filled the nations blogs and chat forums. Laughter is probably not the reaction you're aiming for when it comes to choosing a presidential candidate. After all, isn't laughter the thing that politicians and despots fear most?

But in their anger and desperation the so-called 'traditional values' crowd have finally admitted that their 'traditional values' now include hypocrisy and three time adultery.

So much for the moral high ground.

It must be difficult for establishment Republicans to look in their own mirrors this morning: because Newt Gingrich's face is now the party's face; it's the jowly, self-satisfied image of an increasingly extremist party and it's angry take no prisoners spokesman.

It ain't pretty, that's for sure.

Last night, in full panic or protest mode, South Carolina actually threw the 2012 election and led the GOP right off a cliff. I couldn't believe it. It was utterly fascinating to watch.

Newt Gingrich certainly excites the radical right, the kind of crowds who boo loudly if you say the word 'Mexican,''Black' or 'Gay.' But what about everyone else? In a state where African-Americans make up 28 percent of the electorate only 1 percent of them voted in the South Carolina primary yesterday. What does that tell you about Ginrich's national chances?

Level headed Republican party leaders aren't stupid, they know that Gingrich is political kryptonite at the national level. They know he's doing for the party what Rick Perry just did for Texas. So they're spooked today, and rightly so.

There is a silver lining though - if Ginrich becomes the presidential candidate - because when he's thrashed at the polls in November his fate be a spectacular rebuke to the the ideologues and extremists who, for the last three decades, have hijacked the Republican party and increasingly scuppered their chances.

Now that would be change we could all believe in.
-----------------
Read more: 
More news on US politics from IrishCentral


Leading priest predicts the end of celibacy in the Catholic Church


National Irish Coffee Day – how do you make the perfect Irish cocktail?

-----------------