I chose not to watch the Primary in South Carolina yesterday.  Instead it was a beautifully calm day, a bit grey and overcast, but enjoyable.  Later I called my family to with my father and brother a Happy Birthday, then my mother hit me with the bad news.  Newt Gingrich had won the Primary in SC.  Not just won it, crushed the opposition with a 12.6% margin.

A keystone to this crossing-the-Rubicon moment for Gingrich was the one-two knockout soundbite from the Debates on Thursday where he so throughly trounced John King for opening a presidential primary debate with a question about a quick-break attention piece involving one of Newt’s ex-wives.  The response to the question, and the subsequent verbal beat down of not just King but of the mainstream media in general, played into the eager hands of a staunchly partisan audience and it was the applause heard ’round the nation.  the next morning radio stations were rolling the audio as if it were the first shot fired at Fort Sumter, an image the Drudge Report would later play out  at the top of its well-known site.

So, now we have a two-man race again (Santorum can bark all he want, but he will not last past Florida and I bear no ill will to Paul but he is not getting the traction he needs to sustain), and one has to ask if this is what we want.  I have problems with the Primary system in place, and I have stated as much in previous posts.  From the nonsense about the ballots being too tough to get on in Virginia to how ridiculously easy it is to get anyone’s voting card in New Hampshire; the system is rife with either incompetence or inconsistencies, either of which are becoming glaringly detrimental to the good order of trying to figure out who on earth the Republican Party is going to throw into the ring against the current political version of Ivan Drago, President Barack Obama (allusion aside, he is geared with the money, the people and the technology to be the best in the field).

Rocky parallels aside, the Primaries are the issue.  They are no longer bellwethers, they are Fairweather at best.  Gingrich’s rises to stardom came and went a month and change ago on the premise of his debate skills, and he crashed back to earth in an almost Icarian fashion.  Now, the voters of South Carolina have seen fit to give him another pair of wax wings and let him have another go at that flying-too-close-to-the-sun plan that went so damnably well last time.  All the while Other candidates bleed out on the sidelines, their ideas and policies being overrun by a wretchedly, and mind numbingly irritating, need to focus on the tawdry details related to the bedroom rather than the boardroom or the war room.  So, the question becomes, how does one play it.

I mentioned to friends last night that either the event preceding the debate are either an amazing use of metagaming by Gingrich or an even more brilliant application by political operatives of the other side of the house.

here is the Hypothesis: A single candidate is developing to be the standard-bearer for the opposition party with four years of campaigning under his belt, money to spare, and a national organization that might very well match your own; however there is a mercurial, loud, and ultimately vitriolic candidate that had his 15 minutes and is still holding on but does not have the organization, structure, or funds to match your candidate blow for blow.  Choose who you want to run against, I’ll wait…

Now, the mercurial one is known to play the audience in debates.  The opposition has chosen to run the concept of debates into the grounds but any observer with half a brain cell has noted that the body politic of the opposition party is in a state of spastic upheaval on a weekly basis.  In Five months there have been four frontrunners, some changing hands literally within a week.

They are fractured, leery, and hiding the contempt they have for the thin field of candidates as “weighing their options”.  So, how does one get this group do what you want them to do?  Play to their sensibilities.  Media, to the opposition is a vile thing.  Intrusive (it is), invasive (it is), and lacking basic moral compunction and sound grounding in reality (ehhh…).  All of these are detestable, easy to point out, and the denouncing of the almost criminally invasive nature of the fourth pillar make for great air time on any given channel.

So, We have our mark, we have our patsy, and we need a catalyst to get this ball rolling.  Enter the angry ex-wife that can highlight some socially unacceptable behavior of the mercurial candidate in question.  Air an interview that is much ballyhooed shortly before the Debate, and then fire the opening shot of the debate, not about something all four candidates can talk about, but about what was said a few hours ago.  No time to vet, no time to plan a solid ground game response, just the smooth operator in front of a sympathetic audience with a bit of trepidation and a (let’s be totally honest Jon King got set up to take a hit on that one) slick-haired liberal elite media personality, and boom.  It was a softball lob to Barry Bonds with a corked bat.  It is out of the park.  It is a standing ovation for the man who has had his private life of a decade ago put on display (let us not forget who he hunted in his time), and several rounds of booing for the big bad journalist.

The next morning, the airwaves are filled with the audio of the verbal smack down, the televisions hum with the warm glow of a presidential primary candidate striking one home, and all the while the question is left unanswered, the dogma forgotten in the moment of vicious rebuttal, and now our Mercurial candidate has knocked out the stalwart leader.  Anger, again, has taken the front of the stage and the calm discipline of others is forgotten, if not frowned upon.  The challenger you were most concerned with is now falling behind in the polls (granted he did himself no favors when muddling about releasing his tax records), and the mercurial one is shooting upwards again.  Money will pour into his dusty coffers, a little more organization will be made,  a little more headway will be gained.  All in all, it is the walk to the convention, and you want that convention.  A split floor with only half the opposition choosing the person to be their standard-bearer against the incumbant; oh yes, you want that.

It sounds Vaudevillian.  To be frank, it sounds downright ridiculous, but stop for one moment, look back, and tell me you can’t see it going down that way.  Why lose a rook when you can convince the other sides knight to take out a bishop?