COMMENTARY | After Newt Gingrich's convincing win in South Carolina, the meme du jour is "debates do matter." Flip on any television news show and you're destined to hear this all-purpose story line about the GOP primary in South Carolina.
Gingrich is an able orator but not everyone is convinced that grand oratory did the trick for Gingrich in South Carolina. The Ticket underscored the demographic rift in Republican politics that Democrats are striving to broaden.
Gingrich won 45 percent of South Carolina primary voters who "identified themselves very conservative," with Mitt Romney at 20 percent. Among those identifying themselves as evangelical, Romney only got half the votes Gingrich did.
The Ticket article mentions Gingrich's characterization of Romney as a "wealthy corporate raider." Both hypocritical and antithetical, the tactic worked, rubbing salt into the wounds of South Carolinians plagued by joblessness and a stagnant economy.
In a seeming replay of 1960s movie Elmer Gantry, with its skirt-chasing evangelist protagonist, Gingrich points his finger at Romney: "There's your culprit," Gingrich accuses.
There were other factors, too. The degree to which anti-Mormonism among Evangelicals played a part was addressed in the Tampa Bay Times before the election. South Carolina is an open primary state, another factor that played to Gingrich's advantage.
Meanwhile, Rick Santorum is the obvious cultural conservative without the baggage of three marriages, a 1997 ethics investigation and of having earned $1.6 million lobbying for Freddie Mac.
As a defense hawk and a straight-up family man, Santorum finished a distant third in South Carolina. Logic dictates a conclusion other than Gingrich being either Lincoln or Douglas.
Santorum wasn't impressed with the Gingrich win when he appeared on ABC News, calling Gingrich a "high-risk candidate" just one day after the primary.
There are other risks with Gingrich. Republicans criticizing President Barack Obama for playing the blame game should note Gingrich's adroitness at it.
CNN's Political Ticker relates how Gingrich blamed his lawyers for a $300,000 fine resulting from ethics investigation.
Gingrich sophistry effectively manipulated the state's "value voters" into a political "little-ease." Should the South Carolina primary race be made into a movie, the producers might want to borrow a title from the Kubrick film, "Dr. Strangelove."
Instead of the actual "Strangelove" subtitle, you might have "How the South Carolina GOP Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Moral Relativism."
Anthony Ventre is a freelance writer who has written for weekly and daily newspapers and several online publications. He is a frequent Yahoo contributor, concentrating in news and financial writing.
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