News Flash: Obama Wins in South Carolina!

“The idea that a man like Newt, already once resigned in disgrace from high office and having lived a life now shown to be of almost unimaginable hypocrisy, could be considered a serious presidential contender - well, it's just frightening. How stupid can Americans be?”

~ John Cerullo

“Stupid enough to keep Dubya in the Oval Office in 2004. Stupid enough to make Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson multi-millionaires. Stupid enough to think the current president isn’t American.”

~ Patrick Diehl

So Gingrich beat Romney in South Carolina’s GOP primary last Saturday.

With 99 percent of precincts reporting, the Pompous Philanderer snagged 242,417 votes (40.4%) to Robotron Romney’s 167,419 (27.9%). I read that Robotron went into South Carolina with a 20-point lead which proves my point that polls don’t mean sh*t. It’s the votes that count. And the good Republicans of the Palmetto State apparently decided that they want an arrogant, disingenuous, gaseous prick who lacks the temperament to be president and has no chance of beating Barack Obama in the general election to come out ahead of an adMITTedly (see what I did there?) wooden but nonetheless infinitely more palatable candidate.

And to think I actually wanted to visit South Carolina once.

Rick “The Disciple Who Digs Sweater Vests” Santorum garnered 101,914 votes (17%) and Ron “I’m Racist and I Have Two First Names” Paul collected 77,943 votes (13%).

I briefly tried to discuss the results with my parents at dinner on Saturday night. I shared that I thought 1) Barack Obama could smash Gingrich into an unrecognizable lump of tissue and blubber on a debate stage, and 2) Gingrich won’t be the nominee because the Koch Brothers and Karl Rove know he’s a loser and don’t want their best chance to get rid of Obama to be ruined by a bunch of out-of-line renegades who march to the beat of their own southern drum. I expected a lively discussion to commence at this point but my mom grabbed the remote to increase the volume of “NCIS: Los Angeles” and my dad told me to pass the peas.

I guess the results in South Carolina signify that the party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and St. Ronnie of Reagan now sees a cruel, abrasive, impudent, unscrupulous, volatile, condescending, self-absorbed, deceitful has-been who’s too vain to realize he jumped the shark years ago as a viable contender to become Leader of the Free World, one who can best inspire and lift us up like good leaders do, one who offers more, knows more, is better equipped to solve our nation’s problems and appeal to our best selves than the current occupant of the White House.

Or maybe it’s just because Newt’s white.

I don’t presume to know what was in the minds of conservative South Carolinians when they chose to buck the conventional belief that Robotron has the best chance of beating Obama this November. I know they elected Nikki Haley governor and sent Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint to the U.S. Senate so I really shouldn’t have expected much from them last Saturday. Some observers are saying the uncertain economy fueled Gingrich’s victory but that doesn’t make sense to me because Robotron’s campaign seems to have embraced economic issues more tightly than Gingrich’s.

Talking head and former Clinton advisor Paul Begala wrote in Newsweek last month, and I’m paraphrasing, that when he looks at the Republican field, he thinks Obama’s looking at a second term for sure; when he looks at the economy, it occurs to him that Obama’s in some serious sh*t.

And Newt Gingrich is going to be able to use the economy to his advantage? What about his opposition to unions and his blind allegiance to Israel? What about his desire to take away the right of women to control their own bodies and replace school janitors with schoolkids? (He thinks our child labor laws are “truly stupid.”) What about his comment in Iowa back in December that poor kids have “no habits of working and nobody around them who works” or the fact that he’s currently polling at 40 percent to Obama’s 51 percent? (I know, polls don’t matter. But still.)

Another former Clinton strategist, obnoxious talking head James Carville, recently wrote that Republicans have “a first-class disaster” on their hands with the rise of Gingrich and Robotron’s floundering. “It’s been a terrible time to be a Republican,” he wrote. I’d laugh and clap and do a little tap dance if it weren’t so sad, and if I had more faith in the electorate to examine the candidate’s positions on issues rather than closing their eyes and ears and pulling whatever polling machine lever is in vogue among their ignorant friends and neighbors.

After the results were in, my friend Cecilia Garcia posted in Facebook, “I am terrified that so many people think hypocrisy, arrogance, ignorance, racism and hate are strong leadership qualities.”

I’m terrified too, Chica. Gingrich has been described by one Republican fundraiser as “a ticking time bomb.” I sure don’t want to be anywhere near the Bloviator from Georgia when he blows.

Sources: Detroit Free Press, CNN, Huffington Post, New York Daily News, Real Clear Politics, ABC News.