Rush Limbaugh caricature by DonkeyHotey

These are heavy times for foreign policy. The Middle East has even — finally — become a major point in the Republican primaries instead of just the usual one-off about bombing the living hell out of those damned dirty Persians! But given that Rush Limbaugh and his penchant for misogyny have taken up just as much space in the debate as anything Iran may or may not be doing with fissile material, we should put Iran in its proper context. That is, slightly more important than one ultra-reactionary blowhard.  Conservative humbug George Will probably had the best slap-down of Limbaugh. Speaker of the House John Boehner said that Limbaugh’s use of “slut” and “prostitute” to refer to a woman who testified that health care coverage should, yes, pay for birth control was “inappropriate,” to which Will responded on George Stephanopoulos’ show This Week:

“Using the salad fork for your entrée, that’s inappropriate. Not this stuff. And it was depressing because what it indicates is that the Republican leaders are afraid of Rush Limbaugh. They want to bomb Iran, but they’re afraid of Rush Limbaugh.”

Well, of course. Threatening to bomb Iran can only help your bid to become the Republican nominee. Calling Limbaugh a misogynist pig, on the other hand, can only hurt.

But the nominating process should narrow a bit after tomorrow’s Super Tuesday elections. Gingrich looks strong to pick up Georgia, but every other contest is either a win for Romney or a close race between Romney and Santorum. What’s interesting about the close races is that they’ve only become close in the last few days.

Back in the halcyon days of February, as in a week ago, Santorum was ahead by double digits in some Ohio polls. One out of the University of Cincinnati that came out Feb. 26 had Santorum up by 11 points; another from Rasmussen on Feb. 15 had Santorum up by 18. But three polls came out yesterday – Rasmussen again, Public Policy Polling, and Quinnipiac, which had Santorum by one, Romney by one, and Romney by three, respectively.

The same is true of Tennessee. A Middle Tennessee State University poll that came out Feb. 25 had Santorum up by 21 points, and a Tennessean/Vanderbilt University poll from Feb. 22 had him up by 18. Contrast that to the two polls that came out yesterday. The first, Public Policy Polling, had Santorum up by five, while the other, WeAskAmerica, had Romney up by one.

Elsewhere, Romney should crush it in Massachusetts, Vermont, and Virginia, and no one really cares enough about Idaho or Alaska to have done much polling, but I expect Ron Paul’s quixotic campaign to do pretty well there, especially up in Alaska, where he’s the only one campaigning in a state that loves it some libertarianism. Not that he’ll outright win in either place, but he should get enough delegates to convince Paulites to keep his campaign afloat for a few more weeks.

Speaking of keeping campaigns afloat for a few weeks, that’s exactly what Gingrich needs out of the Georgia win. Next Tuesday, Alabama and Mississippi vote. Gingrich’s race-baiting Southern strategy, which won him South Carolina and looks as though it will give him Georgia as well, should do well in those places, too. If the headlines on March 14 aren’t all about the third Gingrich surge, then they’ll be about his dropping out of the race. There is no other way.

Alabama, Alaska, George Stephanopoulos, George Will, Georgia, Idaho, Iran, John Boehner, libertarianism, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Ohio, prostitute, Public Policy Polling, Republican, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, Rush Limbaugh, slut, South Carolina, South strategy, This Week, Tuesday, Vanderbilt, Vermont, Virginia