The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is out with a new Georgia poll showing Newt Gingrich with a 14-point lead over Mitt Romney just three days before that state's primary.

Gingrich, who represented the Peach state as a member of Congress, is at 38%, followed by Romney at 24% and Rick Santorum right behind him at 22%.

The poll was conducted Wednesday through Friday by Mason-Dixon.

Georgia has the most delegates at stake Tuesday, Super Tuesday, with 76. Gingrich has called it a must-win for him.

MACON, GA -- For the first time this cycle, the Newt Gingrich campaign is directly targeting Rick Santorum to voters -- rolling out robo calls in two key Super Tuesday states against the former Pennsylvania senator.

In the next 24 hours, 150,000 households in both Oklahoma and Tennessee will hear a female voice hitting Santorum on supporting “big labor.”

“On the campaign trail Rick Santorum talks a good game about his blue collar roots and about being for the average family,” the females says. “As senator from Pennsylvania, Santorum cozied up to the labor union bosses and voted for the AFL-CIO and against a national 'right to work' bill that would have let workers opt-out of paying union dues Union dues that hurt families and small businesses.”

“Rick Santorum -- friend of working families or the Union bosses pal? You decide,” the robo call ends.

This is the first paid “advertisement” focusing on a GOP opponent the Gingrich campaign has paid for since Florida. Gingrich is battling for his political life and sees his path back to the front of the pack through the Southern states. Santorum seems to be the Speaker’s biggest competition down South.

Gingrich campaign spokesman, R.C. Hammond, said Santorum has a “Jimmy Hoffa problem.”

“Rick Santorum is the one who has to come to Georgia and explain why he tried to bury his big labor voting record in the end zone of this primary,” Hammond said.

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks during a rally in Woodstock, Ga. on Thursday, March 1

WOODSTOCK, GA -- Newt Gingrich told Georgians Thursday just how vital a win here in his home state next Tuesday really is to his campaign.

“I have to win Georgia, I think, to be credible in the race,” Gingrich told a sold-out Cobb Country Chamber of Commerce breakfast in Atlanta this morning.

The former House Speaker is trying to mount a third comeback in the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum potentially stand in his way as they’ve already won 128 and 29 delegates respectively. Gingrich has also secured 29 delegates. Winning the state of Georgia with 50 percent of the vote would give a candidate 76 delegates, the most of any of the 10 states on Super Tuesday.

And even Gingrich acknowledges Romney or Santorum could become the nominee even though he finds them irrelevant.

“One of them may win because money matters but I don’t think they are relevant because they are just politics, they are just the same old bologna,” he said. “One is Massachusetts’s moderate bologna, the other is Pennsylvania big labor bologna but they are bologna.”

But, Gingrich says of Romney, who is seen in the eyes of many as the inevitable choice to compete against President Barack Obama this fall, is still beatable. 

“You’ve now seen Governor Romney, who’s spent maybe 10 times as much money as the rest of us, can’t close the sale,” Gingrich said. “Well, if he can’t close the sale our job is to go out and keep making the sale until we finish closing it.”

The Romney campaign and the Restore Our Future super PAC have far outspent Gingrich as the Gingrich campaign and his Winning Our Future super PAC have not been able to raise as much money as the former Massachusetts Governor.

Just in Georgia alone, the pro-Romney SuperPAC has spent $1.5 million while Winning Our Future has spent $1.1 million; the Romney campaign itself spent $327,000 and Gingrich just $15,000.

Gingrich told the crowds today, he hopes his message will resonate with voters even without the big money his competitors can attract and he can win with “people power.”

In the end, the race comes down to which of the remaining candidates can beat Obama, Gingrich argues.

“We have two nice people running who are not visionaries,” the Speaker says about his two chief Republican opponents during a speech outside the Cherokee County Georgia Republican Headquarters here. “We have a president who has the wrong vision. So we need to match our positive vision of an American future with his negative vision of a socialist, bureaucratic, secular future.”

ROME, GA -- While his Republican presidential rivals await voter returns from Michigan and Arizona, Newt Gingrich is continuing to fight for his political life in the South while on a bus tour across his home state of Georgia.

Evan Vucci / AP

GOP presidential candidate and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks during a campaign rally Tuesday in Rome, Ga.

“Georgia is the biggest group of delegates up on Super Tuesday so this is a big deal. And it really, really matters,” Gingrich told an overflowing crowd this morning in Dalton.

The lyrics, “I am a real American. Fight for what's right, fight for your life!" from the popular Hulk Hogan entrance song -- “Real American” -- blasted through the speakers as the former House Speaker walked off stage from both of his events Tuesday.

See related: Gingrich says you won't like Santorum the next morning

Many believe Gingrich must do well in the primary in the Peach State next week in order to continue his campaign.

The state has the most number of delegates out of the 10 states that vote on March 6^th to be awarded. While Georgia awards all of its 76 delegates proportionally, if a candidate can win 50% of the statewide vote, all of the delegates will be awarded to that candidate.

The Speaker is so “deliberately focused” on Georgia, and the Southern states, that he forwent campaigning in Michigan and Arizona, letting Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum fight it out in the states instead.

“We decided not to compete in Michigan because we thought it would be important to focus here [Georgia] and to focus in Tennessee and in Oklahoma, in Idaho, and Ohio and the states that are going to be on Super Tuesday,” he said.

But the Gingrich campaign, as the Speaker even admitted today, needs help financially. “Ideas” and “people power” – the two secret weapons Gingrich says he has to capture the nomination – can only go so far until funds dry up.

Keeping with Gingrich’s pitch of lowering gas prices back to $2.50 a gallon, gas cans were turned into donation buckets at his campaign events Tuesday.

“We really have a broad based grassroots campaign.  And so using Facebook, using the internet, using twitter, using emails – all these things really help and they’re really, really low cost,” Gingrich said. “We’re going to have some buckets out back – actually gasoline pails that we’ve cut open to collect money.  So if any of you want to help us collect this message, we’d love to have your help cause every penny’s going to go right back into advertising this week to help win the primary.”

Gingrich wraps up his four-day bus tour in the state he represented in Congress for 20 years Friday before heading to the one Super Tuesday state above the Mason-Dixon line that the campaign hopes to compete in – Ohio.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Just as the race may “redefine itself once again,” Newt Gingrich started attacking a different opponent Monday as he campaigned in Tennessee, hitting the man many believe to be his chief rival in the South -- Rick Santorum.

“You will see things start to clarify if, as people expect, you end up with a Romney victory in Michigan tomorrow, you will see Santorum getting a very different second look,” Gingrich told a crowd gathered for a luncheon.

“He [Santorum] has had two weeks of being the alternative. The fact is, I think there are profound reasons that Rick lost his Senate race in Pennsylvania history in 2006, and I think it is very hard for him to carry that all the way to the general.”

He added, "Then he comes South and you take the case right here. He voted for the unions over FedEx. I suspect most folks in the state don't know that. But in fact he was a big labor Republican in Pennsylvania and I suspect when you get to Memphis and you say to people, 'Gee, this is a guy who wanted to guarantee that FedEx give into the unions.' Santorum won't be as popular the following morning."

Tomorrow, Tuesday, voters take to the polls in Romney’s home state of Michigan and also in Arizona. The outcome there, if Santorum is able to pull out a win over Romney, would throw a wrench in Romney’s path to the nomination. The former Massachusetts governor, whose father served as governor in Michigan, has been spending increasing time and money in Michigan after Santorum’s poll numbers began to rise there.

The former Speaker of the House is use to the up and downs of this race that he often refers to as a “roller coaster.”

“I have the longest record of any candidate in this race to somehow re-emerge over and over again,” Gingrich said.

Gingrich was viewed as politically dead in this race last summer when most of his campaign staff quit, but then shot up in the polls in December before finishing a disappointing fourth in both Iowa and New Hampshire. The former speaker, though, won South Carolina by a commanding margin before struggling in the next six states. Santorum, Gingrich noted today, did something very smart after New Hampshire.

“He took all of his resources -- he skipped South Carolina, Florida, and Nevada," Gingrich said. "He went to three states [Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri] nobody else was in, won the three states, one of which was a disaster for Romney, because he dropped from 60 to 35 in Colorado, so Santorum now has got all the national news media momentum. So, we’re back through another cycle.”

Gingrich is banking on a win in Georgia and success in many other Southern states on Super Tuesday and beyond to help propel him back to front-runner status yet again.

Veering away from his Republican competitors momentarily during his event in downtown Nashville, Gingrich spoke about foreign policy, telling the roughly 100-person crowd the United States is not going to fix Afghanistan.

“There’s some problems, where what you have to do is say, ‘You know, you’re going to have to figure out how to live your own miserable life because I’m not here -- you clearly don’t want to hear from me how to be unmiserable,’" Gingrich said. "And that’s what you’re going to see happen."

But Gingrich, who has been focusing the themes of his campaign recently on gas prices and national security, believes this race is far from over.

“I think you could easily end up in a race, which will go to the convention for the first time in your lifetime,” he contended. “For us, it will be very nerve-wrecking.”

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- Newt Gingrich says he does not object to states passing legislation allowing for same-sex marriage as legislatures are “doing it the right way.”

Asked by a local reporter about legislation passed here in Washington state, as well as Maryland, permitting same-sex marriage, Gingrich responded: "I think at least they're doing it the right way, which is going through voters, giving them a chance to vote -- and not having a handful of judges arbitrarily impose their will."

But the former House speaker added, “I don't agree with it. I would vote no if it were on a referendum where I was. But at least they're doing it the right way."

This stance stems from Gingrich’s belief that the 10th Amendment grants the authority for such decisions to the states, not the federal government.

These remarks come just one day after the Maryland State Senate passed a bill allowing for same-sex marriage; it now awaits the governor’s signature. Washington State’s governor signed similar legislation into law last week.

These two new laws will likely bring the total number of states permitting same-sex couples to marry to eight, plus the District of Columbia.

But will Gingrich’s comments potentially come back to haunt him?

Last summer, Rick Perry was criticized for saying states passing same-sex marriage was “fine with me.”

Perry then clarified his stance during an interview with the Family Research Council in late July before he officially entered the race for president.

"I probably needed to add a few words after that 'it's fine with me,' and that it's fine with me that a state is using their sovereign rights to decide an issue. Obviously, gay marriage is not fine with me. My stance hasn't changed," Perry said.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Newt Gingrich says he will not attend mass today, Ash Wednesday, because he is not obligated to do so by the Catholic Church.

"It’s not a Holy Day of obligation," Gingrich told reporters outside his Phoenix area hotel Wednesday morning.

The former House Speaker, who converted to Catholicism in 2006, said he has gone and received ashes in the past but will opt out this year.

He is, however, thinking about the Lenten Season.

"I am going to give up desserts ... all desserts," Gingrich said. (It is customary in Lent for the devoted to give up something.)

"I am giving up my opinion," Gingrich’s wife, Callista, said jokingly.

The couple, which loves McDonald’s, said they definitely are not giving that up.

The speaker will be spending today in private meetings and preparing for the presidential debate tonight.

“My debate prep is to think deeply,” he said.

Gingrich also met briefly with Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) at a local hotel, taking pictures with the governor and Callista. Some news outlets are reporting Brewer will make an endorsement of a GOP candidate after the debate in Mesa, AZ, tonight.

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

Newt Gingrich waits to be introduced for a speech on the floor of the Oklahoma House of Representatives in Oklahoma City, Okla., Tuesday morning.

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. -- Newt Gingrich has one last debate before Super Tuesday -- the day that could effectively end his presidential hopes if he has a poor showing in the 11 states that vote March 6. (Gingrich is on only 10 of those ballots.)

But Gingrich, who when strapped for cash rode a wave of debates to the top of the polls, doesn’t seem to be putting any more emphasis on this debate, which takes place Wednesday evening in Mesa, Ariz.

"Every debate is important," the former House speaker told members of his traveling press corps as he left the Oklahoma State House, noting that this debate is not more important than any others.

Despite the debate being tomorrow night, the former speaker contended the debate was "too far away" to know how he would prepare for it. Though, as of right now, according to the campaign, Gingrich will have no public events on debate day -- an unusual schedule for the candidate.

Gingrich has had multiple events on past debate days and sometimes even watches movies -- namely Anchorman and Bridesmaids -- to prepare.

Gingrich’s two debate performances in South Carolina are partially credited with his come-from-behind win in the Palmetto State, but his less-than-stellar performances in Florida prevented him from gaining momentum in the Sunshine State primary.

While he seems to be downplaying Wednesday night’s debate with Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul, Gingrich needs a strong showing to try and push his way back into the spotlight and win Georgia, among other states, early next month.

"See you in Arizona," Gingrich repeated with a smile to the press as he walked toward his campaign bus following his last public event before the debate.