Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina...

...primary yesterday, but everyone still seems to think that Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee in November. (Intrade has Romney favored to win both the Florida primary on January 31 and the GOP nomination.)

But ... what if Gingrich upsets the former governor of Massachusetts in Florida, like he did in South Carolina this weekend? And what if Romney is then seen as fatally flawed? (For starters, don't expect a brokered convention.) No, Newt Gingrich could conceivably be the Republican Party standard-bearer and get crushed by President Obama. And, what's worse as far as the Republican establishment is concerned, is that a Gingrich candidacy could pull down Republicans running for Congress with him, costing the GOP control of the House and Senate.

After listening to Gingrich's victory speech last night, I thought: How did the Republicans get themselves into this position? How could they let such a rabble-rouser get so close to the nomination?

Gingrich started his speech (all emphasis mine) by ranting against "elites in Washington and New York":  

“I think it was something very fundamental that I wish the powers that be in the news media would take seriously: the American people feel that they have elites who have been trying for half a century to force us to quit being American and become some kind of other system.”

Really? All I know is that for the last thirty years Republicans have been very successful at lowering taxes on the rich and redistributing wealth upward.

But Gingrich claims to "articulate the deepest felt values of the American people."  

As for his Republican opponents, Gingrich said Ron Paul has been right for twenty-five years on the issue of money and the Federal Reserve. "His critique of inflation, of fiat money and of the Federal Reserve is absolutely the right direction."

Ending the Fed is the right direction? How would the United States function without a central bank? And what inflation is Gingrich talking about? That hasn't been a problem for years.

After being interrupted by chants of "USA! USA!" Gingrich continued:

"We concluded that this is the most important election of our lifetime. If Barack Obama can get reelected after this disaster, just think how radical he would be in a second term."

After the obligatory mention of "Obamacare," Gingrich went on: 

" The centerpiece of this campaign, I believe, is American exceptionalism vs. the radicalism of Saul Alinsky."

(More chants of "USA! USA!")

"The fact is, what we are going to argue is that American exceptionalism, the American Declaration of Independence, the American Constitution, the American Federalist Papers, the Founding Fathers of America are the source from which we draw our understanding of America; he draws his from Saul Alinsky, radical left-wingers and people who don't like the classical America.

"One of the key issues we're going to address head on -- and I'm prepared to take this straight at the president and, frankly, straight at the elite media -- is the growing anti-religious bigotry of our elites. If you go to Newt.org there is a fifty-four page paper there on the balance of power putting the judiciary back in its proper role and eliminating dictatorial religious bigots such as Judge Barry in San Antonio who issued a ruling that if the students -- not only could the students not pray at their graduation -- if they use the word 'benediction,' the word 'invocation,' the word 'God,' ask the audience to stand, or ask for a moment of silence, he would put the superintendent in jail." (Boos.)

"Now, we don't have speech dictatorship in America by anti-religious bigots -- period." (Applause!)

"Let's be very clear -- and again, this makes some of the elite media nervous -- President Obama has been, historically, the most effective 'food stamp' president in American history... I would like to be the best  paycheck president in American history. And I want to go into every neighborhood of every ethnic background in every part of the country and say to people very simply: if you want your children to have a life of dependency and food stamps you have a candidate and it's Barack Obama. If you want your children to have a life of independency and paychecks, you have a candidate and it's Newt Gingrich. And I'll bet you we have votes everywhere."

After throwing out some red meat about the " Tenth Amendment," Gingrich continued: 

"I am also committed to getting back to a balanced budget."

And who was it, again, who blew out the budget? Oh, yeah -- Bush.

"And since I am the only Speaker of the House in your lifetime to have helped create four consecutive balanced budgets, I think I can tell you as president I will work very hard to get back to a balanced budget as rapidly as possible and then to run a surplus to pay down the debt so no Chinese leverage exists on the United States by having our debt."

F****** Chinese!

On to energy and the Keystone pipeline (no Solyndra?):

"Part of our long-term national security has to be having an American energy policy. I want America to become so energy independent that no American president ever again bows to a Saudi king...

"...Barack Obama is taking care of his extremist, left-wing friends in San Francisco...

"An American president who can create a Chinese-Canadian partnership is truly a danger to this country. But it gets worse: last Sunday the Saudis announced they were signing a deal with the Chinese to build nuclear energy facilities in Saudi Arabia. So the Saudis are now saying: we so distrust the Obama administration we'd rather rely on the Chinese."

(Someone in the crowd yelled out, "What?") 

"The Iranians for two weeks taunt us with exercises aimed at closing the Straits of Hormuz and the Obama administration answers to cancel military exercises with Israel because we don't want to provoke the Iranians? President Obama is a president so weak that he makes Jimmy Carter look strong.

"I believe the debate we're going to have with President Obama over the next eight or nine months, the outlining of the two Americas: the America of the Declaration of Independence/ the America of Saul Alinsky; the America of paychecks/ the America of food stamps; the America of independence/ the America of dependence; the America of strength in foreign policy/ the America of weakness in foreign policy. Those two choices, I believe, will give the American people a chance to decide permanently whether we want to remain the historic America that has provided opportunity for more people of more backgrounds than any country in history, or whether, in fact, we prefer to become a brand-new secular European-style bureaucratic socialist system... No, we're not going to go the route of Obama and these kind of radical ideas."

He closes with one last morsel of red meat:

"On Day One we abolish all the White House Czars."

Again, how could it happen that the party of Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush and Bob Dole be represented by such a person? And I have to think that the reason is that President Obama has been so demonized by Fox News and the Republicans in Congress that primary voters are susceptible to this kind of claptrap. But independents won't be. And so what you might see in November is a cathartic defeat for the Republicans on the order of Barry Goldwater or George McGovern. Only then will moderates take back the party and rebuild it again.