So, in my rant this afternoon about Newt Gingrich’s racist comments linking the black community with subsidies, I noted that continued race-baiting rhetoric would lose him the “inclusive” vote he claims to be seeking. I also noted that it might win him the white racists, though, and it appears that might have been his evil-mastermind plan all along: though he lost the Florida primary, an analysis by county shows that the more “Southern” the county, the more likely they voted for Newt. So, it looks like his decision to stay in the race is because Old Confederate primaries are coming up, and Newt is counting on their vote.
From Salon, about what the next month might look like as Gingrich continues his run:
So now Gingrich can spend the next six weeks warning Southerners about the Massachusetts Mormon with a moderate – make that liberal – past. There’s some irony in this. Gingrich started out in politics supporting Nelson Rockefeller over Barry Goldwater in 1964, while the modern Southern GOP largely grew out of Goldwater’s victory in that race. But in this race, it’s Romney who is most commonly associated with Rockefeller, and Gingrich who presents himself as a modern-day Goldwater.
Honestly, there’s no one I distrust more than a politician who panders to the Old Confederacy and their “New South,” e.g. people who want things to go back the way they were before the Civil War. That’s not the community I was raised in and love, nor one that represents today’s South. And it’s most certainly a belief system that should be placated, condoned, validated by even acknowledging it. I don’t care how many votes it gets you.
But, of course, things like ethics and values isn’t something the GOP candidates really care about. If they did, would there even be Republicans anymore?
