Gingrich hopes Ga. win will launch southern sweep

Newt Gingrich hopes his runaway win in home state Georgia on Super Tuesday can serve as a launchpad for a southern sweep that can get him right back into the Republican presidential race.

"Thank you Georgia! It is gratifying to win my home state so decisively to launch our March Momentum," the former House speaker tweeted immediately after US media networks announced his victory.

"In the morning, we are going on to Alabama, we are going on to Mississippi, we are going on to Kansas, and that is just this week," he vowed in a victory speech at his Atlanta headquarters to cheering supporters.

According to exit polls, Gingrich took 45 percent of the Georgia vote, compared to 26 percent for former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the favorite for the nomination, and 20 percent for ex-senator Rick Santorum.

It was only the second primary win so far for 68-year-old Gingrich. After his shock victory in South Carolina in January, he was outspent and steamrolled by the Romney juggernaut in Florida and his support plummeted.

But the victory in Georgia, where voters elected him to Congress for 20 years, could turn things around for the Republican Party's self-proclaimed philosopher king, an irascible showman seeking the ultimate redemption.

Four Republican candidates are still fighting for the right to take on President Barack Obama, a Democrat, in the November 6 general election.

Delegates are awarded by each state in the complex Republican Party nominating process, with one candidate needing to reach 1,144 delegates to declare victory.

In terms of delegates, Georgia was the biggest prize on Super Tuesday with 76 up for grabs, even though more attention was being paid to Ohio, where Santorum and Romney were locked in a tight contest that was too close to call.

Gingrich will now go all-out for victories in Kansas on Saturday, and in the conservative southern states of Alabama and Mississippi next Tuesday.

Romney, a multimillionaire businessman from the liberal state of Massachusetts, is expected to struggle in the south.

"This is awesome, I knew it, Georgia knows very well how smart Gingrich is and (about) his skills to do something for the economy," Robyn Helpern, one of 400 supporters at the Newt 2012 Election Night Party in Atlanta, told AFP.

"I'm sure this victory will help him to win next week in Alabama, he's the best candidate!" the 47-year-old dental assistant said.

The success of Gingrich's Deep South strategy could depend on Santorum. If the former Pennsylvania senator loses momentum after Super Tuesday, Gingrich can again portray himself as the chief alternative to Romney.

There are many reasons Gingrich might fail to become president, but lacking big ideas won't be one of them: the Republican with an instantly recognizable square head is a restless thinker.

Where critics see hypocrisy in three marriages and marital affairs while preaching family values, supporters find redemption and say that Gingrich, who converted in 2009 to Catholicism, has atoned for his sins.

The former House speaker is nothing if not determined and he has already come back once in this race after being counted out, thanks to a moment in South Carolina that will live long in Republican campaign history.

Targeted with the first question of a high-stakes live debate in the heart of America's Bible Belt, Gingrich was asked to comment on the bombshell allegation from his ex-wife that he had once requested an open marriage.

With his presidential hopes hanging in the balance, Gingrich struck out at the "destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media," saying it was "as close to despicable as anything I can imagine."

The stunning counter-attack, which played brilliantly to the innate conservative distrust of the liberal media, transformed the former House speaker from villain to hero and recast his fortunes.

Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz said it is make-or-break time for Gingrich.

"He may have more hope if he wins in Alabama and Mississippi next week but every day seems more difficult."

In his Georgia victory speech, Gingrich warned those who count him out that he would keep plodding on.

"There are lots of bunny rabbits that run through. I'm the tortoise, I just take one step at a time."

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Gingrich slams Santorum as a 'big labor Republican'

NASHVILLE (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich on Monday slammed rival Rick Santorum as a "big labor Republican," accusing him of siding with unions over Memphis-based FedEx when the Senate grappled with a labor dispute in the 1990s.

Gingrich, the former Georgia congressman and House Speaker, is hoping to revive his struggling campaign in the South, and he tailored his message Monday to Republican voters in Tennessee. Although polls show a close race between Santorum and Mitt Romney, Gingrich challenged the former Pennsylvania senator and his conservative credentials.

"I think there are profound reasons that Rick lost the Senate race by the largest margin in Pennsylvania history in 2006 and I think it's very hard for him to carry that all the way to the general," Gingrich said. "Then he comes South and you take the case right here. He voted for the unions over FedEx. I suspect most folks in the state don't know that. But in fact he was a big labor Republican in Pennsylvania and I suspect when you get to Memphis and you say to people, 'Gee, this is a guy who wanted to guarantee that FedEx give into the unions.' Santorum won't be as popular the following morning."

Gingrich was referring to a provision in a 1996 spending bill for the Federal Aviation Administration that sought to help FedEx truck drivers in their efforts to organize. A group of Democrats held up the FAA bill to protest what they said was an attempt to help FedEx prevent its truck drivers from forming a union.

In 2006, Democrat Bob Casey soundly defeated Santorum in his re-election bid.

Gingrich said if Romney wins the Michigan primary on Tuesday, "you'll see things start to clarify. If, as people expect, you end up with a Romney victory in Michigan tomorrow, I think you'll see Santorum getting a very different second look."

Bypassing Michigan and Arizona, the other primary on Tuesday, Gingrich said voters in Tennessee and his home state of Georgia could rejuvenate his presidential bid, which has stalled since he claimed a surprise victory in last month's South Carolina primary. The former House speaker said a handful of states voting on the mega-contest day of March 6 could propel him to wins in Mississippi and Alabama next month and delegate-rich primaries later in the spring in Texas and California.

"Then all of the sudden, the same media which said I was dead in the fall, I was ahead in December, I was dead in early January, I was ahead in mid-January, all of the sudden they're going to say ... Gingrich will be back again," he said during a luncheon with local Republicans.

Tennessee and Georgia hold nearly one-third of the 419 delegates at stake in the 10 states voting on Super Tuesday, contests Gingrich views as crucial to his struggling presidential bid. His campaign sees a potential backdoor opening if either Romney or Santorum stumbles, setting the stage for another showdown in a prolonged series of primary contests.

At a rally on the grounds of the State Capitol, Gingrich, a former history professor, said President Andrew Jackson would have been "enraged" by President Barack Obama, citing the president's recent decision to apologize for the actions of U.S. troops who burned Qurans while destroying documents on a military base in Afghanistan.

"Jackson understood that you want your opponents to respect you," Gingrich said, overlooking a statue of the 19th century president riding horseback. "They don't have to like you but they have to understand that you're formidable and you're dangerous."

Gingrich was reaching for a strong showing in Tennessee even as a statewide poll underscored his challenges here. A Vanderbilt University poll showed Gingrich at 10 percent in the state, trailing rivals Santorum with 33 percent and Romney with 17 percent. The poll of 767 likely Republican primary voters was conducted Feb. 16-22 and had a margin of error of 3 percent.

"The race remains very fluid in this state and will likely continue to move in response to the primaries in Michigan and Arizona," said John Geer, a Vanderbilt political scientist and co-director of the Vanderbilt Poll. "Still, this poll suggests the climb is steep for the speaker, but far from impossible in this unpredictable year."

Earlier, Gingrich attended a health care forum at the law firm of former Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker Jr., R-Tenn., urging Republicans to think of this time as "the beginning of the replacement debate rather than just the anti-Obamacare debate." Gingrich has said he would repeal Obama's health care law if Republicans win congressional majorities.

Gingrich has offered a number of alternatives to the new health law, offering a tax credit to help people buy health insurance or the ability to deduct part of the costs from their taxes.

The former speaker returns to Georgia on Tuesday for a three-day bus tour around his home state, hoping to halt a monthlong slide.

"My basic hope is to pick up some delegates virtually everywhere, pick up a lot of delegates in the South and Southwest and then with Texas and California, be totally in the race," Gingrich said.

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Follow Ken Thomas on Twitter at http://twitter.com/AP_Ken_Thomas

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