South Carolina Sends a Message

The Presidential aspirations of the Republican Jimmy Carter suffered a fatal blow tonight in the Palmetto State. When 59% of the electorate identifies as evangelical and Huckabee doesn't win, it's all over. Outside of Arksansas, it's hard to see where else he picks up a win. Goodbye and good riddance to the populist pretender. And please, please, please, let the eventual nominee be smart enough not to pick him for VP.

South Carolina didn't do Flippin Mitt any favors either. Finishing fourth there takes the luster there was off his winning a state today that no one else contested (Nevada) for Romney. While he has the money to stay in the race as long as he's willing to write checks, the ground doesn't look too good for him either. If he doesn't win Florida, (and I suspect he's looking at another 3rd or even 4th place finish there) he's going to limp into Super Tuesday having won only a single contested race. I'm sure Hugh Hewitt will be around on Monday to tell us how losing another election is all part of Romney's master strategy, but he's in trouble.

At this point we appear to be down to McCain and Guiliani. Thompson's third in SC may keep him alive for another week, but it's hard to see how he improves on that in Florida.

The party of Ronald Reagan will thus probably be led at the polls this fall by either a pro-choice, three times married, anti-gun mayor or a maverick Senator who's against free speech, for amnesty for illegals and against tax cuts. Ugh. The sad thing is that either one of them will be a vast improvement on the Democratic alternative, so I'll probably end up having to vote for one of them. Double Ugh.

The one true conservative in the race, my guy Duncan Hunter, quit today. The fact that he couldn't muster any support anywhere is a sad commentary on today's GOP.