Post date: Mar 12, 2012 8:32:57 PM
Campaigning on his 65th birthday in Mobile, Alabama, Romney received the endorsement of comedian Jeff Foxworthy, host of the show "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?"
"Any fifth graders here? We have got a couple over here. We are going to have a test here. What do you think? If you spend more money every year than you take in, is that good for the economy?" Romney asked, with the audience answering, 'No."
The day before two southern states go to the polls, Mitt Romney campaigns with a popular southern comedian at a diner in Alabama, and Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum call for energy reform at a summit in Mississippi.
MOBILE, ALABAMA, UNITED STATES (MARCH 12, 2012) (NBC) - A new poll Monday (March 12) showed Mitt Romney is surprisingly strong in two Republican presidential primary contests in the South this week that are crucial to his conservative rivals Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich.
Earlier, supporters sang "Happy Birthday" to Romney before heavy rains forced the event to move indoors.
Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum plugged their energy credentials at the Gulf Coast Energy Summit in Biloxi, Mississippi.
"I am the one candidate who has a clear, consistent track record of actually working with Reagan and then working with Clinton getting very large scale change, and I think with the changes we need are not just managing Washington marginally better, they are fundamentally shifting the city towards new attitudes, new institutions and new policies," Gingrich said.
"We are going to have a real transformation of our economy and that will happen because of the plans I have laid out and we are going to be talking about during this campaign, that will begin to happen on day one after the election is decided. I would appreciate your help and support. Thank you for the opportunity of being here today and for of course the wonderful Gulf Coast hospitality," Santorum said.
In Mississippi, Gingrich has a slight lead with 33 percent, while Romney has 31 percent, Santorum 27 percent and Paul 7 percent in the race to become the Republican challenger to Democratic President Barack Obama in November.
In Alabama, the race is tighter, with Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, at 31 percent, Gingrich at 30 percent, Santorum at 29 percent and Paul, a U.S. representative from Texas, at 8 percent.
Both Gingrich, a former congressman from Georgia, and Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, are staking their candidacies on their conservative credentials.
Front-runner Romney had been seen as too moderate to win one of this week's primaries in the heart of the conservative South but he has gained momentum from a series of primary wins in recent weeks.
Both Gingrich and Santorum have urged each other to step out of the race to coalesce votes among more conservative Republicans.