The Republican contest will now drone on for months before Mitt Romney is nominated anyway. Oh, what fun. But also a grave abrogation of responsibility. For all practical purposes, America at federal level is now a one-party state, since the other party has made itself unworthy of serious attention. Already the party of utopian global war without end, at astronomical expense and at whatever cost to the liberties of American citizens, it formally ceased to be the party of family values when a hall full of its activists cheered Newt Gingrich to the echo for his adultery and for his desire to institutionalise it with his second ex-wife.

Socially and culturally traditional Republicans ought to be proud inheritors of the economic and political legacy of Progressivism and of the Nonpartisan League. Socially and culturally conservative Democrats ought to be proud inheritors of the economic and political legacy of Populism and of the Farmer-Labor Parties. Independents ought to be proud inheritors of the Republican and Democratic, traditional and conservative, Progressive and Populist, Nonpartisan and Farmer-Labor legacy of international nonintervention. Liberal, environmentalist, fiscally conservative, and libertarian interests are not illegitimate. But neoconservatism and the New Left are beyond the bounds of acceptable debate. And priority belongs to progressive traditionalism and to conservative populism.

The Southern tradition is in reality the tradition of everything that now unites the two sides of America’s Scots-Irish family, black and white: blue-collar job protection, immigration control, English as the national language, abortion reduction, marriage as only ever the union of one man and one woman, a strong defence capability used strictly for its proper defensive purpose, and the very considerable use of government action, federal as well as state and local, to secure public goods as economically populist as they are socially and culturally conservative, and on both counts rooted in activist, anything but liberal, Christianity. That true Southern tradition also includes opposition to the waging of aggressive wars by the federal government, wars that harvest the black and the blue-collar white alike.

On every point, the Southern tradition corresponds closely, both to the Northern tradition of Catholic Encyclicism, and to the Western tradition exemplified by the (Democratic-rooted) Farmer-Labor Party and by the (Republican-rooted) Nonpartisan League, as well as to the whole African-American tradition with which it is so intimately bound up. Each of those either closely resembles, or is related to, the activist political traditions both of Orthodox and of Classical Reform Judaism. And each of them closely resembles, or is related to, the witness of the Latter-day Saints on a number of contentious issues, from abortion and the definition of marriage to poverty and nuclear weapons.

At every level and from every state, such candidates urgently need to be nominated and elected, whether as Republican, or as Democrat, or as members of other parties, or as Independents. Roll on 2016.

J***e, not another Republican armchair warrior who ducked 'Nam!
Shure, he's a Georgia boy and now ain't that peachy! You ask him who won that Civil War - he'll tell youse, he's a genuine Confederate raider.
First US Speaker to be canned for breach of ethics and providing fantasy TAX figures to the IRS. ( We don take no S**T!)
Around when Ronnie blinked three times when the Soviets and the Huzbullah said "tell me about it, Man"
Obama was in light training for the campaign. Our advice - 'Put your feet up, Mr President!'
Brilliant political attack video on Mitt 'Zane Grey' Romney.
From now on, expect the Mitt to come out fighin' - thumbs and all.
Go get some shut-eye, Mr Prez!
Fer C****t Sake, pension Newt off!

Three Time Loser

@ David Lindsay
Well, we guess, Newt is not a Native American. The boy move so fast - just can't keep track of him. A real trail-blazer!
Not as quick on the draw as Billy the Kid Clinton and a draft-dodger to boot. Newt, we mean!
First generation immigrant or Pilgrim invader we shure got his number.
Most important! Are all his wives blonde? And he is a Christian feared o' the Bible?

Hobby Horse

Newt won't win the nomination.

A) Newt always puts hid foot in his mouth!

B) Newt always shoots himself in the foot.

C) Newt waits until his foot is in his mouth to shoot it.

@Buckskins: or Van der Sloots either...

@Buckskins

"And you are the saddest one of all."

lol. what a cry-baby comeback. what's next from you; "my dad can beat up your dad"? grow a spine already.

but you're not done embarrassing yourself quite yet;

"It's not as if Holland loves Muslims either."

eh? and how would you, an American(?) who berates others for commenting on a country they're not from, know about a country he is not from...?

as ever Bucks, you're sitting in your own excreta.

Jankaas has a point. The GOP nomination race is like an old Warner Brothers Cartoon.

Newt is Yosemite Sam.

Romney is Daffy Duck.

Santorum is Elmer Fudd.

Ron Paul is Marvin the Martian.

These guys are in a circular firing squad arguing about wheather it's Duck Season or Rabbit Season.

Meanwhile Obamma is off to the side, eating a carrot, saying, "He doesn't have to shoot you now."

"eh? and how would you, an American(?) who berates others for commenting on a country they're not from, know about a country he is not from...?"

PMSL@u Jackass.

Only you would consider a first generation American an immigrant. You are the refugee not I.
Is British or Dutch politics too boring for you? Have you seriously considered getting a life?

Newt absolutely shredded CNN's John King in that debate- loved that! Compare Newt's 10 year old personal divorce headline story to the refusal of legacy media's treatment of Democrats Anthony Weiner, John Edwards, Barney Frank, NY tax cheat Rep Rangel, & born-again world diplomat BJ Clinton. There is definitely enough dirt on 0bama-lama for a real left/right gutter throwdown this fall if the new media heroes can tee it up! It won't be boring, can't wait!