A President of the United States, any president is required to take the oath prescribed in our Constitution. The oath is very short only about thirty-five words and it is very simple. It is almost majestic in it simplicity. It is a promise given by the person who is about to assume that high office to do two things: faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and that he or she will to the best of “my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” It promises fidelity to the Nation and it promises the president's best efforts in the defense and the protection of the Constitution. I would think it is similar to the mutual promises of fidelity made by spouses to each other when entering the married state. I find it hard to believe that a serial adulterer, such as Mr. Gingrich, could with a straight face take that constitutional oath. I find it hard to believe that Americans could take seriously the oath of faithful exercise of the office made by a man such as Gingrich who has had three wives and at least two mistresses. That just doesn't seem faithful to me.

Even though my personal feeling for Mr. Gingrich is one of contempt I still think that the powers that be will insist that the GOP Convention nominate him as the GOP candidate in 2012. I am not backing off that. I am not backing off on it mostly because while the christianist base of the GOP which is basically the states of the Confederacy sometimes called the Bible Belt seem to hate Catholics (and Gingrich is a recent conert to Catholicism) they hate Mormons more. I just don't believe that when the dust settles at the convention that Romney will be the last man standing. I don't think there is any substantial doubt in the minds of historians that today's politics derive almost directly from the racially based politics of the 50s and 60s. Nixon’s southern strategy was designed to capture the allegiance of the south for the GOP from the Democrats. Southerners of that era associated the GOP with Lincoln and with Reconstruction and hated both with a passion. I suspect that GOP deserves this because it was part of Nixon's southern strategy to pursue and GOPerize not only the pissed off segregationist democrats (and folks who voted for them) after President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 but also the evangelical Christians who inhabit the states of the Confederacy. They seem to go together like love and marriage. Ever since GOP politicians  have  played to two subsets of Fear. Fear of “them” and fear of 'sin.” Nixon and his people and successors such as Karl Rove (who shares a birthday with Jesus) sought this and perfected this strategy over the decades since Nixon roamed the White House talking to portraits of dead and former presidents.  I am taking a little bit of guilty relish in allof this and in the fact that the southern strategy appears to have turned and is about to take a big bite out of the GOP through its proxy Newt Gingrich.