Newt Gingrich has placed no better than fourth in either of the Republican presidential primary contests so far, but he is demanding that all other candidates drop out and pledge their supporters to him so he can defeat Mitt Romney. “I’m the only conservative who realistically has a chance to be the nominee,” Gingrich said in Florence, South Carolina. “So any vote for [Rick] Santorum or [Rick] Perry, in effect, is a vote to allow Romney to become the nominee, because we’ve got to bring conservatives together in order to stop him.”

Gingrich went on to attack Santorum personally: “You could make a pretty good case I actually know how to design a national campaign. I actually know how to set up a conservative alternative to Obama. I don’t think Santorum can win. It’s not because he’s not a nice guy, but he doesn’t have any of the knowledge of how to do something like this.”