NYT: South Carolina’s Divisive Message

[babylonsister]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/opinion/sunday/south-carolinas-divisive-message.html?ref=opinion

South Carolina’s Divisive Message
Published: January 21, 2012

snip//

It was Mr. Gingrich who pulled the race into the gutter, where he found considerable support. He repeatedly called Mr. Obama “the greatest food-stamp president in American history,” and lectured a black questioner at Monday’s debate about the amount of federal handouts to blacks, suggesting their work ethic was questionable.

On Thursday, in the derisive tones of a radio talk-show host, he said Mr. Obama’s cabinet looked like Mickey Mouse and Goofy. At that night’s debate, he lashed into the moderator for asking a perfectly reasonable question about his ex-wife’s allegation that he wanted an open marriage, saying it was typical of an “elite media” that was trying to protect the president by attacking Republicans.

That was just what South Carolina voters wanted to hear, the signal that he would not only challenge Mr. Obama but work to bloody him, to destroy his dignity. As one voter told a reporter, “I think we’ve reached a point where we need someone who’s mean.”

They got that candidate on Saturday. Mr. Gingrich shocked Mr. Romney by making an issue of the jobs he destroyed in his leveraged-buyout firm, and he is clearly prepared to take negative campaigning against Mr. Obama to a new low. In his victory speech, he even descended into Rick Perry territory by accusing the “elite media” of anti-religion bias. Is that really what Republicans across the country want from their nominee, or is South Carolina, with its history of acute racial tension and contrarianism, simply sending a singular, extreme message?

It is still hard to imagine a path to the nomination for a divisive candidate like Mr. Gingrich, let alone one to the White House. If he continues along this muddy road, there is still time for Republicans in upcoming states to repudiate him, and demonstrate that South Carolina has become an aberration rather than a bellwether.

[TheCowsCameHome]

1. Newt's sudden rise will be short-lived. He has no money, only venom.

The Times is correct - it is an abberation. Newt's 15 minutes are just about up.

[JoePhilly]

3. Newt is special, he's so well known that he can get lots of press everytime ...

that he says something angry and insane.

I agree he can't win the nomination, but he can hang a round for a while.

[TheCowsCameHome]

4. Just long enough to split the GOP into pieces.

That'd work.

[JoePhilly]

5. Yup ... that works for me!!

[BeyondGeography]

2. Typical Times

Gingrich did appeal to the worst in people, but Bain Capital under Romney routinely did the worst to people. Romney is as much a symbol of eveything that's wrong with the GOP and this country as Gingrich. I'm not going to burn one of my valuable 20-stories-per-month or whatever bullshit it is that the Times tries to impose by reading this whole story, but it looks like the Times is doing what it always does, cutting the Establishment guy and everything he represents unwarranted slack.

[BR_Parkway]

6. Interesting that the writer assumes other Repugs would not want this same

candidate. Where has he been not to see the out right nastiness of the GOP these days - from the top of the House of Reps right on down right into the comments section of every online forum - this is exactly what the GOP has become