Former South Carolina Lt. Gov. endorses Newt

From Peter Hamby of CNN:

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich picked up the endorsement of former South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer on Monday, giving him his most prominent surrogate to date in a state that Gingrich's campaign has billed as its "southern firewall."

"Speaker Newt Gingrich offers the best and most comprehensive plan to get America moving forward and that is why today I am announcing my full support for Speaker Gingrich ... a true conservative, a true patriot, and true leader," Bauer said in a statement.

Newt to get several South Carolina tea party endorsements in the coming days

From Peter Hamby of CNN:

Sensing opportunity in a state with a vibrant tea party movement, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is beefing up his campaign presence in South Carolina.

Gingrich's national Coalitions Director, Adam Waldeck, is re-locating to Columbia to run political operations in the first-in-the-south primary state.

The Gingrich campaign is also planning to roll out several tea party endorsements in the Charleston area in the coming days. One prominent tea party leader in the state, Columbia activist Allen Olsen, endorsed Gingrich in September.

Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond said the campaign is building "a grassroots firewall" in South Carolina, a state that could be friendly to Gingrich given his roots in nearby Georgia.

Peter Hamby of CNN on Palmetto Freedom Forum

Hamby, who is covering the 2012 Presidential race for CNN, wrote:

And former House Speaker Newt Gingrich won high marks from conservatives, weighing in on Twitter with a policy-fluent speech laced with references to American history and sharp attacks against the federal judiciary.

After the forum, Gingrich had kind words for his GOP rivals and said the tea partiers have been unfairly vilified by the media and Democrats.

He made reference to recent reports that Vice President Joe Biden called tea party activists "terrorists" in a closed-door meeting during the debt ceiling debate.

"It strikes me that despite every effort of the news media and every effort of the Democrats to isolate the tea party and treat them more hostilely than we treat terrorists who are trying to kill us," Gingrich said. "Here you have a Democratic Party where it's OK to call American citizens 'terrorists' but it's not OK to call terrorists 'terrorists'? There is something really bizarre about that."

Hamby also talked about an uneasy moment for Michelle Bachmann:

"I believe it is also unconstitutional for states to mandate as a condition of citizenship, that an individual would have to purchase a product or service even at the state government's behest," Bachmann said.

Pressed by conservative Princeton legal scholar Robert George to back up her assertion by naming a provision in the Constitution, she could not.

Newt to be at Jim DeMint's Presidential Forum

Newt's campaign confirmed he would take part in the Palmetto Freedom Forum, which is occuring in South Carolina over Labor Day Weekend and of which South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint is a co-sponsor.

"Candidates will take turns fielding questions from the trio of panelists for roughly 20 minutes at a time," writes Peter Hamby of CNN. An actual conversation when determining who should be the next President -- what a concept!

In other news, Newt will be at the Georgia GOP Fish Fry this Saturday. It will be Noon to 2 PM.

Here is the Facebook event page.

Also, Newt will be on Sean Hannity's TV show Wednesday night.

Update on South Carolina from CNN

South Carolina's primary season is about to heat up, reports CNN:

This Saturday marks the beginning of the South Carolina's county convention season, when Republican activists gather in high school gyms and cafeterias to attend to local party business and tap delegates for the statewide convention … York County Republican Party officials will run a 2012 presidential straw poll at their [Saturday] convention. Perhaps a more instructive straw poll will take place the following Saturday in Greenville, home to the state’s largest county-level Republican Party organization and ground-zero for South Carolina’s evangelical community. Santorum, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich are all expected to attend the Greenville event on April 9, followed by the Spartanburg County convention occurring later that morning and just a few miles up I-85. Another 2012 straw poll will be conducted on April 15 at the Charleston County convention, likely to be one of the largest Republican gatherings of the season."

The article points out that Newt has two big "gets": Katon Dawson and Walter Whetsell.

Of the 2008 primary winner, Mike Huckabee, Peter Hamby writes that the former Arkansas Governor "has done next-to-nothing to mount a repeat bid in South Carolina."

Hamby notes that former Minnesota chief executive Tim Pawlenty "has no one working for him on the ground in Columbia."