Gingrich routs Romney

S.C. Republicans went rogue Saturday, choosing Newt Gingrich for president in the state’s GOP primary.

In the process, the primary results threw the 2012 Republican presidential race into chaos and upended 30 years of precedence – of always endorsing the GOP’s establishment candidate.

It is the first time a Republican has won the S.C. Primary without winning either of the first two election season contests – in Iowa and New Hampshire.

The S.C. results also call into question the ability of onetime GOP front-runner Mitt Romney to rally the Republican base in the fall’s general election against Democrat President Barack Obama.

Gingrich victory’s transformed South Carolina from its traditional role of kingmaker of the Republican establishment candidate – this year, Romney – to disrupter – resurrecting the candidacy of Gingrich, who had finished fourth in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire, and restarting the Republican primary process.

In doing so, S.C. Republicans may have passed their “we-pick-presidents” torch to Florida, a much larger, richer state that has been eyeing South Carolina’s spot on the primary calendar.

“Especially if (Florida) anoints Romney, and Romney goes on (to win the nomination), they could say, ‘We had more to do with that than South Carolina did,’ ” said Dave Woodard, a political science professor at Clemson University. “There will be some efforts to try to change the (primary) queue.”

But S.C. Republican Party chairman Chad Connelly said the state always will be ahead of Florida on the primary schedule because its small size and cheap media markets allow all the candidates to compete, not just the well-heeled campaigns.

“Until I am proven different, I am going to stick with our story. Looking at our history, South Carolina picks the nominee,” Connelly said, alluding to the possibility that Gingrich could become the Republican nominee.

South Carolina’s primary defied convention.

According to exit polls, Gingrich:

• Won a majority of Republican Gov. Nikki Haley’s supporters, despite Haley’s endorsement of Romney and her vigorous campaigning for the former Massachusetts governor

• Won a majority of evangelical voters despite polls suggesting those voters, a power in the socially conservative Upstate, were divided.

• Won a majority of female voters despite his three marriages and admission of affairs. One ex-wife called the former House speaker out last week on national television, saying he wanted an “open marriage.”

“This is the first genuine surprise in the 2012 presidential contest,” said Richard Quinn, a veteran S.C. political consultant who initially backed former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman but switched his allegiance to Gingrich when Huntsman quit the race.

In South Carolina, Gingrich found an electorate clamoring for anyone-but-Romney, and he used two nationally televised debates in the days leading up to the primary to consolidate that vote.

Gingrich’s past sins – his ethics charges, $1.6 million in controversial payments from the bankrupted Freddie Mac, his affairs and marriages – bothered Catherine Inman, a 40-year-old technology coordinator at a software company in Columbia.

That is why Inman first chose former Sen. Rick Santorum, who finished third in Saturday’s primary, ahead of U.S. Rep. Ron Paul.

“And then, because I just don’t think (Santorum) has a chance, I went to the one who I thought had the most intelligence about just America in general and what we are going through, and that’s why I chose Newt. So I just kind of had to let that go,” Inman said. “(Romney) has six homes, he has all of this lavish stuff. ... When you live that way, you just don’t have a good take as to what the average American is going through.”

While Gingrich excited Republican voters, Romney settled for not offending them.

As Jim Hammond, a 70-year-old retired doctor, put it after voting in Columbia, “I don’t have anything against (Romney). I don’t have much for him.”

Romney almost won Iowa, won New Hampshire and, so far, is leading in Florida – all states that Obama won in the 2008 general election.

In South Carolina – a state that has voted Republican every election starting in 1980 – Romney was supposed to prove that he could appeal to the GOP’s base.

He failed.

Yet, in his concession speech, Romney was upbeat, telling the crowd, “We still have a long way to go.”

Romney’s S.C. team was confident he eventually will win the nomination, defeating Gingrich, whose campaign is short on money and organization, and is not even on the ballot in some states.

“I just don’t think you can make your way to the White House beating up the press,” said Warren Tompkins, one of Romney’s S.C. advisers, referring to Gingrich’s angry Charleston debate Thursday, where he ripped the moderator for asking him about allegations by his ex-wife.

“To make the press a scapegoat for all of (Gingrich’s) problems, if that’s a good strategy, somebody ought to talk to Richard Nixon.”