Speaking of the Devil

The conservatism of Rick Santorum is a cult of renunciation, and so the men pray before they eat, the women are as modest as Mennonites, and the devil is always at the door. At the Gingrich victory party, the devil was not only already inside; he was right there on stage, with a red-dressed Callista at his side,

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I talked to one of [Newt's supporters] on my way out, after Newt and Callista had made their way through the cologne-and-cocktails scrum and out the door. His name is Randy. He lives in Dawsonville, Georgia. He was standing with his 13-year-old son in front of one of the televisions that had been set up in the ballroom, watching the news that Rick Santorum was leading Ohio. "What do you make of this?" he asked me. I told him that if Santorum won in Ohio, it would change the party as well as the race, and make Newt completely irrelevant if he wasn't already. He thought about that for a bit; then he said, "People like Santorum because he's a conservative. Newt's not a conservative. He just gives lip service to being a conservative because he has to. He's a radical. If he gets to Washington, he'll be just as radical as Barack Obama, just on the right side and with more respect for the Constitution. I like him not just because he thinks like me but because he has fallen down like me. I'll tell you what I know about him — he's a dirty dog. He's still a dirty dog. He's a reptile. He doesn't have the same blood running in his veins that we do. I'll get out there and get in people's faces, but when they get in mine my feelings get hurt. That just shows I'm human. But Newt's not human. He doesn't have feelings. And you know what? That's why we need him."

  Charles Pierce