Gingrich campaign warns SC is the last chance to stop Romney

The Newt Gingrich campaign is warning supporters that South Carolina is the last chance to stop Mitt Romney from becoming the Republican presidential nominee.

In a fundraising letter sent to supporters Wednesday, the campaign said the 10-day stretch left until the South Carolina primary is do-or-die time.

“There’s no more time for talking about stopping Mitt Romney,” the campaign wrote in the letter. “We’re going to do it next week in South Carolina or he’s almost certain to be the Republican nominee, whether conservatives like us want it or not. It’s up to you, right now.”

Romney won a decisive victory in the New Hampshire primary Tuesday night, and the week before took first place in the Iowa caucuses, albeit by a slim eight-vote margin over Rick Santorum.

Gingrich has fallen sharply in the polls since his surprising rise in December, and finished in fourth place in New Hampshire — almost 30 points behind Romney.

In the days leading up to the New Hampshire primary, Gingrich assailed Romney for his time as an executive at Bain Capital, saying executives at the firm “looted” companies and wiped out jobs while enriching themselves. 

Gingrich has himself been under attack for what some on the right have called “anti-capitalist” rhetoric. On Wednesday, the Gingrich campaign returned to its argument that Romney is a weak conservative.

“We can either nominate a timid Massachusetts moderate Republican to take on a secular socialist who threatens to turn us into a nation like the decrepit Republics of Western Europe,” the campaign wrote. “Or we can nominate a bold Reagan conservative who will take the fight to Barack Obama in the Fall.”

Gingrich also returned to positioning himself as an outsider, while lumping Romney in with the Republican establishment.

“I was the architect of the biggest GOP victory in 40 years in 1994,” the campaign wrote. “I can do it again this year and beat Barack Obama, but not if I don’t defeat Mitt Romney and the Republican Establishment next week in South Carolina.”

And in typical Gingrich fashion, the campaign couched its address in dramatic historical terms.

“In 1964, Ronald Reagan told conservatives that this was a time for choosing. Faced with a radical, progressive President who would weaken America abroad and at home, they could either fight to preserve America as the last, best hope on earth, or consign their children to a thousand years of darkness. This year is another such time for choosing.”

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