Time to turn to Newt?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

As much as I like Newt, in many ways, the fact is, he did lose his campaign staff, at one time, and had to rebuild.

So did McCain in 2008 IIRC.  It's still too early to anoint Mitt as the Republican standard bearer.  Despite what keeps happening to the flavors of the months, he never gains from it.  Mitt is the front-runner and likely GOP nominee, but it is absolutely not inevitable.  Nor is it inevitable that Newt will end up being the one who becomes the final Anti-Mitt.  Rick still has a shot at that title, tho he'll need Newt to stumble as all the others have before.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

For example, Romney has already won New Hampshire and (arguably) Iowa. Thus, according to you, he is an impossibility and thus the results of South Carolina will result in something strange and unknowable.

never said it was an impossibility, just that SC primary is a fare better bellwether than either IA or NH, simply because SC is far more representative of the overall GOP.

Southern Republicans are more representative of the party than the evangelicals, moderates, independents AND fiscal cons?

South Carolina's GOP is a mixture of the main strands of the national GOP.  We've got evangelicals in the upstate, fiscal conservatives in the midlands, a smattering of libertarians and businesspeople in the low country, with an overlay of military hawks pretty much everywhere.  We aren't Mississippi thank goodness.