"THIS is the beginning of a long, hard slog," said Ron Paul, at his optimistically titled "Victory Party". "This is a hard fight because there's so much worth fighting for," said Mitt Romney, "and we've still got a long way to go." Indeed we do. A week ago South Carolina was going to be Mr Romney's coup-de-grace, turning Florida into an afterthought. He had won the two previous contests. Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry were squabbling over the social-conservative votes. Only Messrs Paul and Romney had the organisation and the ground game to go the distance, and Mr Paul's support had (and still seems to have) a low ceiling. But then Mr Perry dropped out, endorsing Mr Gingrich. A recount showed Mr Santorum won in Iowa. Mr Gingrich parlayed a couple of powerful debate performances into victory in South Carolina. And Mr Romney now finds himself with the wind in his face rather than at his back.

What happened in South Carolina? Erick Erickson writes that today's result was "about Republican grassroots giving the Washington Establishment the finger. The base is angry, and right now only Newt is left to fight for them." Mr Gingrich can hardly be considered a Washington outsider, having served in Congress for some 20 years, but if there is one thing the former speaker is good at, it's fighting. His debate performances this week displayed not a mastery of the issues, or any particularly novel policy proposals, but anger. His speeches have portrayed the campaign as an epic battle between an exceptional American, himself, and an un-American president. So it's hard to argue with Mr Erickson's analysis, but if you look at the exit polls, it is equally hard to be satisfied with it.

Particularly in the last week of the campaign, Mr Gingrich engaged in some expert racial dog-whistling. He called Barack Obama the "food-stamp" president (shades of Ronald Reagan's infamous "Welfare Queen") and accused him of declaring war on religion and traditional American values. He was not merely condescending to Juan Williams, the lone black moderator in the most recent debate, but effectively called him lazy at a campaign event. He then used this tussle as a campaign ad arguing that he could most effectively beat Mr Obama, who just happens to share the same skin colour as Mr Williams. These attacks seemed to go down well with primary voters, who were 99% white.

Then there is the religious angle: 64% of South Carolina's voters are white evangelicals, and 60% of those voters think it is very or somewhat important that a candidate share their religious beliefs. The Mormon Mr Romney did poorly with that group of voters, who instead gave their support to Mr Gingrich, in spite of his history of philandering. So South Carolina was always going to be unfavourable ground for the former governor; the question is what does he do now?

In the short term, he goes to Florida, where his SuperPAC has spent $7.3m on TV ads and Mr Gingrich's has spent none. Then he goes to Nevada, which is 11% Mormon, where he will do fine. He remains the likely nominee, but he will need to change tactics, and quickly too. His recent debate performances were as abysmal as Mr Gingrich's were stellar. When questioned about his wealth, he stuttered, twitched and stammered, for no good reason. He did not get rich robbing banks; he got rich by being good at his job, and if, as he said tonight, Republicans celebrate success and prosperity, he has nothing to apologise for. So he will need to confront the attacks on his business record, and tonight he made a good start, accusing Mr Gingrich of attacking free enterprise. But his air of inevitability has worn off, and his electability argument has been dented. That makes it much harder to win as everybody's second choice, and it may prove more costly in the long run than simply not winning the few delegates South Carolina offers.

(Photo credit: AFP)