ANGER rarely serves political parties well.

Passion, yes, but anger comes over as flaky and out of control. Yet just now in America, where the Republican primaries have entered their pell-mell season, anger is perceived as a required attribute in candidates out to win the party's nomination for November's race to the White House. Its purpose ? A semblance of solidarity with an electorate enraged by the cavalier avarice of Wall Street.

For the billionaire Mitt Romney – he Republicans' unloved national favourite – this need to acknowledge America's "99%," has seen him pressured into adopting the rhetoric of his party' right wing. But the problem here is that Mr Romney is, by nature, what Margaret Thatcher would have called a Wet. Not so his most mischievous opponent Newt Gingrich, the man who breathes fire over anyone who dares to cross him. As he rants about Washington elites and sneeringly defines Mr Romney as "a Masachussetts moderate", Mr Gingrich epitomises Stump Rage, lashing out on the campaign trail at those he damns as RINOS, Republicans-in-Name-Only.

No-one doubts that he can flex more intellectual muscle than the other candidates bunched together. No one doubts his ultra-conservatism and superior sword-play in televised debates. But despite his impressive win in South Carolina, Mr Gingrich has now experienced a pile-up of primary defeats. If he's to stay in the fight – as he insists he will – he needs the political equivalent of the raising of Lazurus. This week may be that moment if, as polls predict, his home turf of Georgia places him firmly back in the frame.

Short on funds, big on bombast, Gingrich has a history of self-resuscitation, but while some of his aides proclaim " the South belongs to Newt", others are urging temper restraint. Tomorrow's Super Tuesday will test whether that suggestion has been heeded when 10 states, including Georgia, the largest hold ballots to find the best candidate to wrest the presidency from Barack Obama.

But to ask Mr Gingrich to mend his manners might only ratchet up his relish for bare-knuckle fights. This is a man for whom rudeness is not just a character flaw but a political strategy. The man who,with the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky prosecutor Kenneth Starr, was labelled by the media in the 1990s as the Torquemada Two. ForMr Gingrich, at least, that reference to the 15th century friar who spearheaded the Spanish Inquisition, has remained a perfect fit.

Just now the Republican campaign is dominated by what one commentator calls "Mitt Romney's desperate eagerness and Rick Santorum's inflexible sourness". Mr Gingrich's loathing of Mr Romney is personal but he hardly warms to the right-wing rookie candidate, Rick Santorum, an orthodox Catholic given to sleeveless jumpers. He, in turn, can scarcely approve of Mr Gingrich's marital record – two divorces, admitted infidelities and an ex-wife who trashed him for wanting an open marriage.

In the torrid years of Bill Clinton's initial Democratic administration, Gingrich was the president's most scabrous tormentor, hypocritically denouncing Mr Clinton's record of adultery while secretly practising the same. In the 1990s Mr Gingrich's wilful failure to comply with federal tax laws led to a $187,000 fine and the humiliation of a grovelling apology. And in 1995 Mr Clinton trounced him as a backroom schemer when he called his bluff by partially shutting down government, causing 800,000 employees to be temporarily laid off, then made certain Mr Gingrich carried the blame.

What makes him tick? Ironically, the same imperative that drove Bill Clinton: escape from childhood deprivation. Both men, from impecunious backgrounds, were abandoned by aggressive, feckless fathers, and loved by mothers who fed their sons' inflated opinion of themselves. Clever men but while Mr Clinton, despite his flaws, remains a charmer, Mr Gingrich, a lover of reptiles, is said to retain his hold on the Grand Old Party because so many others have dodgy things to hide.