Newt Gingrich has won the South Carolina Republican primary, effectively throwing the GOP into a fiery ball of confusion and assuring the race will be a “knock-em-down-drag-em-out” fight to the finish!
With only 4 candidates remaining, the final tally from Saturday’s vote was as follows: Newt Gingrich 40%; Mitt Romney 28%; Rick Santorum 17%; Ron Paul 13%. With the Gingrich win, a different candidate has now won each of the first 3 Republican races, since Santorum won Iowa, Romney won New Hampshire and Gingrich has now won South Carolina. At no time in modern history has a presidential primary been this divided.
In recent weeks, Republicans had begun to jump on the Romney bandwagon, believing he was on course to be the eventual nominee. But a Romney coronation doesn’t yet appear to be in the cards, as the Tea Party, evangelicals and old guard Republicans have all proven the party is severely divided.
The Republican party is actually several factions under one party moniker, and it will be interesting to see how they resolve all their differences to select a nominee they could enthusiastically support against Barack Obama. Evangelical Republicans don’t like Romney the Mormon. Family values Republicans don’t like Newt the twice divorced adulterer. Old Guard Republicans don’t believe Santorum has the gravitas or experience to challenge the savvy Barack Obama, while plenty more Republicans just think of Ron Paul as a cultish fringe candidate with no chance of ever being president. It’s a formula for chaos and disaster that has President Obama grinning like a Cheshire cat.
As the race heads into Florida next week, will Romney regain his inevitability? Will the GOP find unity and common ground? Or is their dysfunctional marriage of mismatched factions doomed to crash and burn?
This has gotten hilarious to me. I wouldn't be surprised if none of them got the nomination.