That Newt Gingrich should win the South Carolina Republican primary is no surprise. South Carolina is the most reactionary state in the union.

It fired the first shot in the Civil War. It still proudly flies the Confederate flag on its capitol grounds.

But no matter to South Carolinians. He’s their boy in the GOP fight for the presidential nomination even though Gingrich carries more baggage than an airliner

President Obama should be salivating. Gingrich and the other three GOP presidential candidates--Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum--are unsuited to be president.

Let’s talk about the worst first: Gingrich.

He is an arrogant, pompous fraud. A hollow man. He was driven out of Congress in disgrace, the first House speaker disciplined for ethical wrongdoing.

Even dedicated Republicans are calling him erratic, unethical and even dangerous.

Gingrich’s ideas are deplorable. He would fire unionized janitors and hire kids in their place. He opposes extending jobless insurance because that’s “giving people money for doing nothing.”

His racism is blatant. His stereotypes are from the Dark Ages. Blacks are lazy and don’t want to work, their families are on the dole.

His racism is also subtle. Gingrich says Obama “put more people on food stamps than any president in history.”

Gingrich would abolish the liberal 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. He urges a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. He laments elimination of prayer in the schools because kids are “now adrift morally.”

He is violently anti-labor, favoring right-to-work laws and abolishing the National Labor Relations Board.

Gingrich says the Palestianians are “invented people,” which earned him a $5 million campaign gift from multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson. Adelson, owner of the largest circulating newspaper in Israel, had already contributed $8 million to the Gingrich campaign.

Gingrich claims not to be a member of the “national establishment” yet has been a Washington insider for four decades.

He was a lobbyist for Freddie Mac, government-sponsored mortgage company, making $1.6 million over eight years. At the same time he sold access to health care insurers to reap $37 million.

Gingrich makes $60,000 a speech, a huge sum for selling snake oil. His credit line at Tiffany’s is $500,000. In 2010 he reported $3.16 million income. He and his third wife, Callista,  have a net worth of $6.5 million.

Frank Bruni, New York Times columnist, writes: “Gingrich lashes out against secularism. He and his wife trumpet their Catholicism although for six years they lived in defiance of its tenets.”

His chronic philandering led him to demand an open marriage with his second wife. He divorced his first while she was battling cancer.

Mitt Romney? The best of a dreadful lot.

Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone sums up his character perfectly: “He is totally insincere, calculating and soulless.”

As Massachusetts governor Romney pushed through the legislature a health plan similar to Obama’s. But now he repudiates any liberal instincts.

Romney and his wife Ann had an income of $27 million in 2010 and $20 million last year.

“They held millions in Swiss bank accounts and millions more in Cayman Islands partnerships,” the New York Times noted. The Times also reported that his family’s blind trust holds $250 million.

Heading into the Florida primary Tuesday, Romney made a blatant appeal to the large Cuban-American population living in Miami. He grimly vowed: “if he becomes president Fidel Castro will be taken off this planet.”

Romney’s union-bashing will appeal to right-wingers in Florida, declaring that “the National Labor Relations Board is stacked with union stooges.”

Not true. But campaigning politicians have a mere nodding acquaintance with truth.

The stooges remark shows that Romney and most Republicans abhor the magnificent insight of Republican Lincoln: “labor is the superior of capital and deserves much the higher consideration.”

Ron Paul makes excellent anti-war points. He’s against the absurd U.S. war in Afghanistan. He would bring all overseas troops home. He opposes the stupid drug war.

Otherwise he’s dreadful. He would repeal civil rights laws, overturn Roe and abolish Social Security, Medicare  and Medicaid.

As for Rick Santorum, he is so retrograde that even most Republicans cannot vote for him. He opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest.

Rape victims? Why, Santorum says, women must “accept what God has given them.”

Santorum is one of those religious fanatics who give you the creeps.

In sum, all four GOP candidates are regressives. They are Social Darwinists like the robber barons of the Gilded Age.