The Messiah’s Victory

Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina primary election. He’s the heart’s desire of many voters, but Mitt Romney still has the long-term advantage and remains the favorite.

The soul of the Republican Party was aired in South Carolina. A soul that longs for a conservative candidate, someone they can not only respect, but someone they can love. And yesterday, it came to pass: Southern Republicans gave their wholehearted support to a candidate who fulfills all their longings, Newt Gingrich.

That victory for Gingrich, former speaker of the House of Representatives, is noteworthy because he pulled even with the presumptive favorite Mitt Romney. But at the same time, Gingrich’s victory doesn’t give much indication as to who will actually win the nomination.

Gingrich won in a place where he has an electoral base, namely, the neighboring state of Georgia where he has served for many years in the U.S. Congress. Over the long haul, however, the advantages lie unmistakably with Romney because he has the money, the campaign organization, the discipline and the support of a majority of Republicans who think he’s most likely to defeat Obama in November.

But no matter how the primary race ends, the South Carolina primary clearly showed what it is that’s missing in the Republican Party these days: A unified conviction as to which direction the giant of U.S. conservatism should take. The Republicans don’t form just one party, they form at least three: There’s the old Republican establishment party of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush; there’s also the relatively new currents of the fundamentalist tea party movement, and finally, there’s also the social conservatives supported mainly by evangelical Christians.

The problem is, none of the four remaining Republican candidates has managed to unite any of those factions. That’s the reason there are so many different winners and so much volatility. Republican voters this year are desperate and will grasp at any available straw they see. In South Carolina, that straw was Newt Gingrich.

If Gingrich is to have any chance whatsoever of pulling off the impossible and actually winning the Republican nomination, he has to start exploiting his greatest strength: His clout and experience in the television debates. That’s the reason for his success thus far. Financially, he can’t hope to keep pace with Romney.

He’ll have two more chances to demonstrate his prowess before voters go to the polls in Florida at the end of January.