Way down yonder

Gingrich Victory Party - Tom Junod on Newt Gingrich's Georgia Win - Esquire

These weren't sanctity-of-marriage Republicans; these were second-and-third-marriage Republicans. These were Republicans whose favorite song isn't "Amazing Grace" but rather "Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues." These were the Republicans who spearheaded Atlanta's suburban expansion in the seventies by moving out to the "swinging-singles" apartment complexes across the Chattahoochee River; the Republicans who voted for Jimmy Carter because of his association with Southern rock bands and then voted for Ronald Reagan because they thought that Carter turned out to be a weakling and a prig, and they didn't like waiting in line for gas; the Republicans who lost their houseboats on Lake Lanier in their divorces and lost pieces of themselves when Dale Earnhardt, redneck writer Lewis Grizzard, and the Johnny of Atlanta's fabled pickup joint Johnny's Hideaway died; the Republicans who might not wear gold chains and leisure suits anymore but have them in their DNA. Sure, they had bills to pay, but by God they also had stories to tell, and they liked Newt because he promised to help them with the former while not judging them for the latter. He was their guy because he was part of their history, and his last-gasp victory in Georgia was as much a victory for a localized subculture as Ron Paul's second-place finish in Maine.