THE SOUTH has spoken. For a southern candidate, a very definite, very southern message. South Carolina Republicans, two-thirds of them evangelical or born-again Christians, and known for picking the eventual Republican nominee, have given a strong endorsement to resurgent former speaker and son of neighbouring Georgia, Newt Gingrich.
His 40 per cent vote, a 12-point lead on his nearest rival, Mitt Romney on 28 per cent, has given new wind to his sails and punctured talk of the inevitability of a Romney/Obama match. All, in this bizarre rollercoaster race, just 10 days after a distant finish in New Hampshire left the impression his candidacy, twice declared dead by pundits, was all but over. Now we have the prospect of the Republican contest stretching well into the spring.
No slam dunk. No longer, no doubt to the chagrin of the Republican establishment, can former governor Mitt Romney count on divisions in the ranks of the anyone-but-Mitt camp. Extrapolation of a national trend is dangerous because of the distinctly southern, conservative and evangelical flavour of the state, but Romney has been outperformed in all the key social/attitudinal groups in which he must win. But the reality that over half of the state’s voters say they made up their minds at the last minute, suggests a volatility in the restive Republican ranks that will make both men nervous.
It was, according to the polls, a remarkable coalition of support for Gingrich, who, perhaps most significantly, for the first time became the favoured candidate among those who see the key issue as finding someone who can beat President Barack Obama, until now firm Romney territory. Evangelical Christians, Tea Party supporters, and the “very conservative” (four in 10 voters) rallied to him helped by increasingly commanding debate performances and heavy state advertising spend.
Gingrich, a Catholic convert, also was the most popular among the six in 10 voters who want a candidate who shares their faith – only a few years ago Protestants in the South would probably have viewed Catholicism with as much suspicion as some view Romney’s Mormonism. And he even outpolled the latter among women, clearly not too thrown by his former wife’s “open marriage jibe”.
And so to Florida (January 31st), and expensive campaign ground – Romney has already spent $4 million in advertising, while Gingrich has yet to start. Florida’s conservative politics and demography are quite different, and Romney, with a 20-point opinion poll lead there, faces far friendlier terrain, and also in Nevada and Michigan which follow. But the race is most definitely open.