EASLEY, S.C. -- Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign rolled into this tiny town west of Greenville on Wednesday, bolstered by Monday night's debate performance and public validation by key Republican constituencies. It was enough good news that Gingrich's chief rival swiped at him, a sign the race is tightening.
At Mutt's BBQ, where the sweet potato crunch comes highly recommended, Gingrich touted his chances to win Saturday's primary vote and noted a key advantage: One more debate tonight in Charleston. Gingrich's debate performances have boosted the former Georgia congressman into a position to challenge front-running Mitt Romney here.
"There is one candidate who can give you a conservative nominee and one candidate who can stop Mitt Romney and a vote for anyone else is a vote to help Mitt Romney possibly be the nominee," Gingrich said.
A victory for Gingrich would not stop Romney after back-to-back wins in Iowa and New Hampshire, but it would ensure the race continues into Florida next week. A Gingrich loss, too, would not necessarily signal the end of the campaign but Gingrich himself has said he would be hard pressed to continue if the Palmetto State follows the pattern and boosts Romney.
"I need your vote, I need your voice, I need your help the next four days," Gingrich said to more than 500 people packed inside and out Mutt's.
While every recent poll shows Romney leading, a TIME/CNN survey of likely Republican voters released Wednesday shows 35 percent could still change their mind. That poll also showed Romney with a 33 percent to 23 percent advantage over Gingrich. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum was third with 16 percent.
Earlier Wednesday, Gingrich received a key endorsement from the Rev. Michael Youssef, pastor of an Atlanta super church, whose weekly television and radio programs are broadcast in 20 languages to more than 190 countries. He is the founding pastor of The Church of The Apostles in Atlanta.
"To me, as a person who understands the Scripture, I highly regard a person who knows how to repent when they sin – than a person who is self-righteous and never acknowledges their sin," Youssef said in a statement released by the campaign. “Newt is one of the few people ... who truly understands the dangers surrounding our nation and Western civilization."
Perhaps more importantly, former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said Tuesday night that if she lived in South Carolina she'd be voting for Gingrich.
"Iron sharpens iron, steel sharpens steel," Palin told Fox News. "In order to keep this thing going, I'd vote for Newt."
While not a full endorsement, Palin's comments in conservative South Carolina could help Gingrich's argument that like-minded voters here should coalesce behind him to challenge Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts whom Gingrich has labeled a moderate.
"Having a ‘Massachusetts moderate' would be a really, really weak hand going in," Gingrich said.
That label stuck with Nancy Holcombe, 68, a Republican voter from nearby Six Mile.
"Romney is too moderate and so I think Newt has the experience and you learn by being there and doing that," Holcombe said. "I believe he is the only one who can stand up against Obama in a debate because he has the facts in this brain and he doesn’t have to stammer and stutter and think about it or read a teleprompter."
Holcombe, too, said she came to her decision to support Newt after watching him in Monday night's debate.
Romney, perhaps sensing that Gingrich was gaining momentum, if not ground, had surrogates strike back at Gingrich's tenure as speaker of the U.S. House.
Former U.S. Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo., and former U.S. Rep. Susan Molinari, R-N.Y., both of whom served under Gingrich in the House, blistered his tenure as their leader in a conference call with reporters organized by Romney's campaign.
"He uses the language the left uses in attacking free enterprise," Talent said, referencing Gingrich's attacks on Bain Capital, the investment and venture capital firm Romney co-founded.
In Congress, Talent said, Republicans got tired of having to go "home and having to clean up after our Speaker. If he's the nominee, it will have an impact on the 2012 election and the impact isn't going to be good."
Molinari echoed Talent, and said Gingrich led by chaos.
"Newt was forced to resign by his own conference by many of the same men and women he helped elect in 1994," Molinari said of the year Gingrich led a Republican revolution that ended with him holding the speaker's gavel. "They did it because they knew he was no longer the reliable leader."
If Gingrich becomes the nominee, she said, "the focus is always on Newt and when the focus is Newt, the Republican Party loses."
At an earlier campaign stop in Winnsboro, Gingrich was told Romney's campaign was claiming that Gingrich's time as speaker was so disastrous it helped re-elect Bill Clinton president in 1996.
"That's just stupid," Gingrich responded to the charge, according to news reports.
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