The voters of South Carolina voted overwhelmingly for Newt, and historically, that state has been very often the determiner of who the candidate would eventually be.
If Gingrich had gone on to win the next up state, Florida, he probably would have had the momentum to at least have a brokered convention on tap if not garnering enough delegates to win the nomination prior to Tampa.
Alarmed, the Romney backers spent millions of dollars in attack ads in the Florida campaign and overwhelmed Gingrich who was never able to recover the financial ability to be competitive after that.
Romney never won a majority of votes during the active part of the primary campaign even though he had the massive financial resources and the backing of the establishment in the Beltway and media and the likes of Ann Coulter.
When Palin decided not to run it seemed to many conservative Palin supporters that Gingrich was their best hope (especially after Palin herself said she would vote for him) for a genuinely conservative president and agenda.
His new Contract With America was a fine set of principles and action plans and he would have been a worthy opponent for President Obama. Not least because he stood for something and wasn't encumbered by an "etch-a sketch" flip flopping reputation, nor saddled with a health care history like Romney.
Since Romney won, against weak under financed opposition, his campaign has, in the view of many seasoned commentators across the political spectrum, been lacklustre and makes McCain's look stellar by comparison.
His hiring as a campaign manager someone who was an attacker of Palin, his not offering her a major speaking role in Tampa has deeply annoyed her legion of supporters.
His hiring of a campaign spokesperson who applauds his Massachusetts health care as a response to an Obama campaign attack advert was seen as possibly disastrous by Red State and now Coulter herself. Now his reported sanctioning of Gays to work in the Boy Scouts may be the final straw for many
No doubt Gingrich as the nominee would have undergone substantial attacks on aspects of his past history,especially his personal life but conservatives, the base, would have supported him on his steadfast political principles and ignored the media.
It may very well turn out in November voters of South Carolina and Georgia were right in the primary campaign but that knowledge will be cold comfort to them and the rank and file of the GOP across America when faced with four more years of an Obama administration
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