GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said Sunday that following his loss in the Nevada caucuses to Mitt Romney this weekend, his campaign is betting on the March 6 Super Tuesday primaries.
“Our goal is to get to Super Tuesday where we are in much more favorable territory,” Gingrich said on NBC's Meet the Press.
He said prospects look good in Georgia and Tennessee on that day as well as for Alabama on March 13 and Texas on April 3.
“By the time Texas is over, we will be very, very competitive in delegate count,” he predicted.
Gingrich's focus on Southern states stems from his success in South Carolina where he powered to victory thanks to the support of voters looking for a more conservative alternative to Romney.
Ten states hold primaries or caucuses on Super Tuesday and a total of 437 total delegates are up for grabs. They are Alaska (27), Georgia (76), Idaho (32), Massachusetts (41), North Dakota (28), Ohio (66), Oklahoma (43), Tennessee (58), Vermont (17), and Virginia (49).
But before Super Tuesday, Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, Maine, Arizona, Michigan and Washington all hold primaries or caucuses. Winning all of those could give Romney serious momentum.
Gingrich refused to say whether he has lost personal respect for Romney due to the negative attacks the former Massachusetts governor unleashed in order to win big in Florida and Nevada.
“That is basically an irrelevant question,” he said. “Gov. Romney is running a campaign that he, he thinks is right for him. I don't happen to think it is a very good thing to do.”
Gingrich pressed his own attack, saying Romney's comment that he was "not concerned about the very poor" reflects the fact that Gingrich has better proposals for the poor, including school choice for public school students and refusing to increase the minimum wage with inflation, something Gingrich said will increase unemployment.
He said Romney is “pro-abortion, pro-gun-control, pro-tax-increase.”
Gingrich also defended his proposal to have a lunar colony as serious and noted his proposal does not involve massive government spending.
“This was not some slip,” he said.
Gingrich said that even if unemployment continues to fall, President Obama will have difficulty in getting reelected. He noted high gas prices and deficit spending as being problems for the president even if unemployment falls dramatically.
