After shedding staff and what some described as "campaign infrastructure" last week, Newt Gingrich will be doing another 'day trip' on the campaign trail today, as the former House Speaker still says he isn't getting out of the GOP race.
Why do I use "day trip" to describe it? Because Gingrich won't have to travel far from his home in the Washington, D.C. suburbs in order to get to Frederick, Maryland, where he will be holding two events - a day before the April 3 primary here.
Wisconsin has been getting most of the attention from Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, but there is also voting in Maryland and Washington, D.C. on Tuesday - Mitt Romney is the favorite in all three contests.
After today, Gingrich will have actually held the most events in Maryland of any of the major GOP candidates, but there's no evidence he's ready to jump up in the polls, as all recent surveys have him far behind Romney and Rick Santorum.
A Rasmussen poll out last week gave Romney a 17 point edge over Santorum in the Old Line State - Gingrich trailed Romney in that survey by 33 points.
A new PPP poll out Sunday night gave Romney an even bigger advantage in Maryland - Romney 52%, Santorum 27%, Gingrich 10% and Ron Paul 9%.
But that's not stopping Gingrich, who can drive the 55 minutes or so from the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. to Frederick, which has been an important crossroads in Maryland since colonial times.
Gingrich had another day trip last week as well in Maryland, when he went to the state capital of Annapolis, and then over to the Eastern Shore; he also spent a day in Delaware (60-90 minutes up the road from DC) and had one campaign day in Washington, D.C. when he gave a speech at Georgetown University.
And each night, he could back to his house and not run up the tab for any hotels or airplanes.
So, if you really want to keep campaigning for President - and keep the costs down - some day trips on the campaign trail really have helped the budget for the Gingrich camp, and we'll see more of that today - and maybe more later this week when he goes back to Delaware.
Whether it produces delegates - that's another story.
