INDEPENDENCE, Iowa -- Newt Gingrich said Monday that he doesn't expect to win tomorrow's Iowa caucuses in a bow to his sinking poll numbers in the state.

The former House Speaker, who led in polls of likely Iowa caucus-goers as recently as early December, sought to lower expectations for his showing tomorrow night.

"I don't think I'm going to win," Gingrich told reporters during a press availability. "If you look at the numbers, that volume of negativity has done enough damage. But on the other hand, if the Des Moines Register was right and 41 percent [are] potentially undecided, who knows what's going to happen."

"Whatever I do tomorrow night will be a victory because I'm still standing," he added, noting that this is the second time he has had to fight after many political observers had written off Gingrich's campaign last summer after the majority of his staff quit

Gingrich has been pummeled by negative ads over the past month that have taken a toll on his political fortunes in Iowa. The NBC Newst-Marist poll released on Friday found that he had slid to fifth place among likely caucus-goers.

As for how badly he wanted to win, Gingrich said his desire to come out on top tomorrow didn't surpass personal items like his family.

"No, of course I don't want it more than anything," he said.

Gingrich also announced that he will be caucusing tomorrow night at the Blackhawk County caucus super site, a popular destination for caucus-goers where thousands of Iowans are expected to be in attendance. Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, who was born in nearby Waterloo, will also be speaking at that particular caucus site, as will Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

ATLANTIC, Iowa -- Newt Gingrich wrapped up his 2011 campaign year with a bang…or at least with a rather flashy event.

Amongst flats of Coca-Cola products, the Newt Gingrich bus pulled inside a bottling company as music blared through speakers — an entrance with much more bells and whistles than normal for the former House speaker, and perhaps signifying a new phase of the campaign as the Iowa Caucuses linger just three short days away.

“This the opening three minutes of the Super Bowl, we're learning a lot about what our opponents will do. They are nastier and more dishonest than I expected, so we'll have to make some adjustments,” Gingrich told reporters during a press conference following the town-hall at Coca-Cola Atlantic Bottling Company. “It's just exactly like the Super Bowl, you see the opening series, you think about it, think about what you need to do next, it's going to be a very long game,” he noted saying this changes will come after the New Year.

This upbeat event, with patriotic songs “Only in America” and “Independence Day” playing as Gingrich took to and left the stage, comes during what has been a trying time for the campaign. The Speaker has been under constant attack on television and in mailboxes for weeks, his poll numbers have been slipping significantly in the Hawkeye State [new NBC News/Marist poll shows him in 5th place], and it seems his health has been dragging down his enthusiasm.

“I don’t know if I picked up a slight flu or something but I had about 24 hours of being less than my normal ebullient self,” Gingrich finally admitted to reporters who have been noticing a change in the candidate’s demeanor this week. He insisted that he has been “campaigning all this life” and is not tired just “piqued last night.”

This is the Speaker’s 19th event on his “Jobs and Growth Bus Tour “ across the first-in-the-nation caucus state. He hopes this last push in Iowa will help him win over caucus-goers before they head to caucus.

“I think we will have a pretty competitive Tuesday night,” Gingrich said.

One elderly gentleman, who will speak at his caucus on Gingrich's behalf, attended today’s town-hall with roughly 150 other Iowans and may have brought Gingrich the good luck he needs to win the nomination.

He told the Speaker the last two candidate's hands he shook hands with became president and now wants to shake Gingrich's hand.

"Now that's a good omen," Gingrich said after the two men shook hands.

Gingrich picks back up on his Iowa bus tour first thing New Years Day and the campaign said depending on the venue, this type of campaign style will be implemented.

HAMPTON, N.H. -- Mitt Romney, campaigning in Hew Hampshire on Saturday morning, focused his attacks on President Obama before returning his focus this afternoon to his Republican foes in Iowa.

The Hawkeye State's caucuses are just three short days away, but the former governor of Massachusetts, in a brief overnight trip, wanted to let New Hampshire voters know that he hadn't forgotten about them, either. He assailed Obama before a crowd of 450 at one last breakfast stop this morning before returning to Iowa this afternoon.

Showcasing his front-runner status, Romney bypassed his GOP rivals and went straight for the incumbent president. He argued Obama would be remembered as "a footnote in history" to a roaring applause at the cozy Old Salt restaurant on New Hampshire's coast.

"I don't blame him for the recession," Romney said. "But I blame him for keeping it going for so long.”

Calling Obama a failure, Romney pointed out his support to increase the national debt, calling the move "simply wrong and inexcusable."

"People will look at us at the worst generation," Romney warned.

Interestingly, Romney did concede that the economy may see an uptick during the course of his campaign.

"I presume the economy will get better," he explained, before throwing more jabs at Obama. "I just think he is overwhelmed and in over his head."

Politicking aside, the lion's share of Romney's visit was focused on showing off his softer side. Flanked by his son Craig and former New Hampshire governor and surrogate John Sununu, Romney shared a swath of patriotic stories and childhood memories before slowly wading through the sprawling restaurant and even the restaurant's kitchen like a professional, hugging supporters close, calling out to old friends and kissing babies. One supporter tapped his shoulder and urged him to choose Rep. Michele Bachmann as his running mate, to which Romney responded, "She's a great lady."

Closing out his pitch on this raining morning, Romney asked supporters to "find a friend" and vote for him in groups on January 10. As his black Suburban pulled away from the restaurant, a handful of protesters heckled him among supporters and staff.

"See you in a few days. Happy New Year!" he waved.

Win Mcnamee / Getty Images

Republican presidential candidate and Texas Gov. Rick Perry speaks to Iowa voters Friday at The Fainting Goat bar and restaurant in Waverly, Iowa.

MASON CITY, IOWA -- Gov. Rick Perry on Friday appeared to endorse making English the official language of the United States, agreeing with a questioner who put forward a strongly worded defense of the idea.

"I don't know how the rest of the conservatives in the room feel," said a questioner at Perry's last event of the day. "Personally, I'm fed up with seeing the directions on every single product on every single shelf of every single store written in foreign languages. And I'd like to say English should be the official language of government in this country."

"That is a statement. That's not a question. And I can agree with that," Perry responded without elaborating further.

A spokesperson for the governor said that while Perry has in the past been open to changing the law to make English the official language, he has typically said he views other economic and social issues as more pressing matters for legislation.

Perry, accompanied by his wife, daughter and son-in-law, spoke to about 50 Republicans at a fundraiser for the Cerro Gordo County GOP in Mason City. Also in attendance was Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, the influential west Iowa conservative whose endorsement has long been sought after by Republican presidential candidates.

King told reporters before the event that he is still not sure whether or not he plans to support a candidate in the race.

"At this point, I just don't know," he said, shrugging.

Asked after his remarks if he'd asked King for his endorsement, Perry joked that the courtship was even more intense than his famously long wooing of his wife Anita.

"I've asked him for his endorsement more times than I asked my wife to get married!" he said.

"I told him I'm going to keep asking," he added.

LE MARS, Iowa -- Texas Rep. Ron Paul defended his foreign policy views on Friday amid signs that those views, and how they jibe with the Republican base, could be a vulnerability in his bid for the GOP's presidential nomination.

Paul held steadfastly to his anti-war message before a crowd of 200 people, despite being attacked by other presidential hopefuls, who have assailed Paul's views as dangerous to national security.

Addressing this criticism Paul asked the crowd, "Guess where I get the strongest support? Active duty people."

"They don't want these kind of wars. They're not anxious to get involved in wars that are not in our national defense," the libertarian-minded congressman continued.

Paul said in response to a question about Republicans who viewed his foreign policy as radical that it was the same belief system he'd held for three decades.

Paul went on to explain that he felt the same way when he was drafted in 1962 during the Vietnam War, saying the nation wasn't threatened by the Vietnamese.

Paul said he felt as though his opponents had seized because he doesn't "have any flip-flops" and they had to do something. He said that it was unfair to characterize him as an isolationist, and defended it from assertions that he was weak, asserting, it's "not weak to talk," before dropping bombs.

For the second day, while warning about the encroachment of civil liberties, Paul spoke about a bill in Congress that would regulate the Internet. He said the Internet is a good "unlicensed" way for people to talk to each other and told the crowd the issue of civil liberties is important because "it eventually attacks all our liberties," and that means "religious liberties can be attacked."

Paul said his "message won't be on evening news," but a small group of people can change the world -- even quoting Samuel Adams -- saying there are "so many brushfires" burning across the country and that they are being spread in "a viral manner through the internet."

WATERLOO, Iowa -- This tune might sound familiar to John McCain.

Gov. Rick Perry continued to hammer rival Rick Santorum over his past support for earmarks Friday, taking a page from the 2008 GOP nominee's playbook by ridiculing individual pork barrel projects of dubious-sounding value.

"Just yesterday, once again, he defended his prolific pork barrel spending," Perry told over a hundred Iowans at Doughy Joey's pizza parlor in Waterloo. "So, Sen. Santorum, just to get a little more specific here, please tell me why you asked taxpayers to support the bridge to nowhere in Alaska.  Why did you ask the taxpayers of Iowa to support a teapot museum in North Carolina, an indoor rainforest in Iowa, and the Montana sheep institute?  Why were those important enough for you to vote for?"

Earmarks for seemingly trivial projects -- notably the $400 million Ketchikan bridge and the $50 million rainforest center in Coralville, IA (less than 100 miles from Perry's morning visit today) -- were frequent fodder for the anti-spending rhetoric that launched McCain to the 2008 Republican nomination.

Perry's attack continues the volley first deployed by the campaign yesterday in the candidate's appearances and in a new radio ad. In response, Santorum, who has surged above Perry in two recently released polls, defended his past earmarks but said that he would uphold the temporary moratorium placed on the practice in late 2010.

On Friday, Perry also slammed his rival for supporting debt ceiling increases during his time in Congress.

"You voted to raise the debt ceiling 8 times while he was in the United States Senate -- more than doubling the debt in this country from 4.1 trillion to 9 trillion dollars," he said of Santorum.  "And I got to ask you, how is that fiscally conservative?"

"Asking a Washington insider to stop runaway spending is like asking a bank robber to guard the vault," he added.

Perry's visit marked a return to the city where he launched his Iowa campaign in August, receiving a raucous welcome at a GOP dinner marked by a comparatively lukewarm reception for Ames Straw Poll winner and Waterloo native Michele Bachmann.

Standing virtually ignored at the back of the event as Perry was mobbed by crowds back then?

Rick Santorum.

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- In an interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd this week, Newt Gingrich said he did not need to win nominating contests in Iowa or New Hampshire as long as he won South Carolina.

“You have to be in the top three or four,” said Gingrich. “I would like to come in second in New Hampshire.” But, he continued, “You need to win South Carolina. Everyone who has won South Carolina has been the nominee."

And while Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond seemed to downplay that prediction, saying “no state is a must-win,” a memo obtained by Real Clear Politics today belies that sentiment.

The memo, written by new members of his Iowa team, said Gingrich is positioned to “perform consistently well in both Iowa and New Hampshire and then win in South Carolina and Florida.”

While every eventual Republican nominee since 1980 has in fact won South Carolina's primary, Gingrich is seeking to accomplish what no other candidate in the 30-year history of modern primaries has: a South Carolina victory after losses in the first two states.

The former House speaker stands in fifth place in Iowa, according to the NBC/Marist Iowa poll released Friday. And some Palmetto State Republicans doubt that Gingrich would be able to achieve victory here after losses in Iowa and New Hampshire, even in spite of the fluidity of the Republican field.

“No one has gone 0-for-2 and won South Carolina,” said Warren Tompkins, a longtime strategist here who worked on Mitt Romney’s 2008 campaign and today announced he would be advising the campaign on a volunteer basis.

One factor is the boost in fundraising and buzz brought on by an Iowa or New Hampshire victory. If Gingrich doesn’t have that momentum coming in to South Carolina, the path to a win for Mitt Romney here becomes clearer, some experts say.

Hammond countered: "The must-win is the nomination."

PUTTING IT ALL ON PALMETTO

Past candidates who downplay early states have done so at their peril, noted former South Carolina Republican Party chairwoman Karen Floyd, citing Rudy Giuliani’s Florida-centric bid in 2008 and Romney’s decision that year to pull out of South Carolina after New Hampshire.

“When they decided not to play in some of the carve-out states, they lost the earned media,” she said.

That earned media – cable chatter, word-of-mouth, online buzz -- could compensate somewhat for Gingrich’s inability to match his opponents’ big ad buys. A lack of that energy, however, could be problematic in South Carolina, a state driven more by media than retail politics.

“It’s not like suddenly he’s going to be able to spend a ton on TV ads,” said one unaligned national consultant who worked for Romney’s 2008 campaign and is familiar with South Carolina politics.

Gingrich’s top-four threshold might not be enough to quell a perception that he’s running out of steam, said Jim Dyke, a South Carolina-based national strategist.

“I think if he does not do very well -- one or two -- in Iowa, he’s going to have a further sinking, which is going to make it more difficult in New Hampshire and it’s going to make it extremely difficult in South Carolina," Dyke said.

But Clemson political science professor and Republican consultant David Woodard said he would not count Gingrich out here, saying he’s been impressed with the former speaker’s “unconventional” presence.

“He is working something that the others aren’t doing and it’s primarily this social media kind of thing,” he said, noting the volume of emails and Facebook bulletins he receives from Gingrich supporters (Woodard added the Bachmann campaign is also reaching him through social media).

S.C. FOR THE MASSACHUSETTS MORMON?

While Romney’s campaign has been setting low Iowa expectations for months, he is now leading some polls there, including the NBC/Marist poll, which showed him at 23 percent. He is garnering larger, more enthusiastic crowds than his campaign said they had anticipated.

That atmosphere is leading some observers in South Carolina to say he could ride a stronger-than-expected showing in Iowa, plus a New Hampshire win, to a victory here.

“They have done a masterful job of managing expectations,” Dyke said, adding that an outright win in Iowa  “would really solidify the argument that he’s the candidate who can win everywhere.”

That argument could be strengthened if Romney wins socially conservative South Carolina, some of whose voters balked at his Mormonism in 2008, according to the national consultant who worked on Romney’s campaign that year.

“You’re the Mormon from Massachusetts who flip flopped on social issues who just won in South Carolina. It beats the expectations. No one would expect it," the consultant said.

Dyke drew a parallel between Romney and 2008 nominee John McCain, whose record did not jibe perfectly with voters here but who eked out a 33 percent victory over Mike Huckabee, who took most of the Evangelical vote.

“[McCain’s] record wasn’t necessarily tailor made for this state, whether it was immigration or judges, but there was a recognition that he was the best candidate for the fall,” Dyke said.

Even if Romney doesn’t win in Iowa, he still has the ability to sustain his campaign without an Iowa fundraising boost.

“These other guys have to win states in order to stay alive,” the consultant said. “Mitt Romney doesn’t have to run a marathon, he just has to make sure that his terminal disease isn’t as fast as the other guys.”

Plus, Romney can invest in South Carolina’s relatively inexpensive media markets (he made a $230,000 broadcast ad buy here on Thursday) while simultaneously buying some of Florida’s much pricier airtime, the national consultant said.

“Florida is a must-win. And South Carolina is the perfect setup for it. Last time, they got cold feet [in South Carolina] and pulled the plug and they probably saved about half a million dollars. In the overall scheme of what that campaign spent, they spent more than that on rock climbing walls for the Iowa straw poll.”

While the Romney campaign isn’t investing in as much gym equipment this time around, they do have a low-key, but persistent, presence in South Carolina. In addition to holding a tele-town hall with voters here on Monday, Romney has a robo call, which Floyd received, in which he says he intends to “earn the trust of every person in the state of South Carolina,” according to Floyd.

Plus, in addition to Tompkins, Romney also signed on Luke Byars as an unpaid adviser – adding bulk to his three-person South Carolina team.

Romney’s sotto voce presence here, gradually crescendoing, could lay the groundwork for a Romney win in South Carolina -- but the persistence of a few other candidates past Iowa could complicate that calculus.

THE LONG SHOT AND THE WILD CARD

Rick Santorum’s recent Iowa surge (he’s in third at 15 percent in the NBC poll) has some observers here drawing comparisons to Mike Huckabee. the former Arkansas governor who campaigned, like Santorum, mostly on social issues. After winning in Iowa, Huckabee narrowly lost to McCain in South Carolina with 30 percent of the vote.

“I think Santorum could be the next Huckabee, I really do,” Woodard said, adding that the difference between 2008 and now is that “neither of the two frontrunners are a McCain. Neither Gingrich nor Romney have inspired the kind of loyalty that McCain could.”

But Dyke dismissed the Huckabee parallel, saying that Huckabee’s background as a pastor gave him a stronger connection to evangelical communities than Santorum has. “It’s just apples and oranges,” he said.

One candidate who could become a thorn in the side of any candidate in South Carolina is Ron Paul, who is expected to do well in Iowa (he's in second, with 21 percent, in the NBC/Marist Iowa poll) and has some support here (he took 8 percent of likely Republican voters in the most recent NBC/Marist poll here, third behind Gingrich and Romney).

Paul today also received the endorsement of former South Carolina treasurer Thomas Ravenel, who resigned after being indicted on a federal cocaine charge. In a Facebook post, Ravenel praised Paul’s position against drug prohibition.

Paul’s organization in South Carolina is not as robust as in Iowa -- and that's not even to mention that Paul does better in a caucus setting than a primary -- but his presence here is enough to vex any candidate looking to make South Carolina, where the 2008 nominee won by just a three-point margin, a firewall.

“It will be at least a three-way race, and Ron Paul’s not getting out. So it’s not like it’s as clean and clear as I think Speaker Gingrich is articulating it,” said Tompkins. But a Ron Paul victory in Iowa could be a rallying point for South Carolina voters lukewarm towards Romney, the national consultant said.

“If Ron Paul comes in first, then all of a sudden there’s a scary bogey man we’ve all got to rally around – look, Mitt might not be our guy but we can’t let it be Ron Paul.” Regardless of the various scenarios that pundits will no doubt be gaming out between now and the South Carolina primary, one fact remains certain: a win here, preceded by losses in Iowa and New Hampshire, would be a first in South Carolina’s 30-year history of picking Republican nominees.

NBC's Alex Moe contributed

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Newt Gingrich teared up during a campaign stop on Friday, speaking about his late mother in front of a group of mothers in Des Moines.

Gingrich displayed emotion in response to a question from GOP pollster Frank Luntz, who asked the former House speaker to recall special memories of his own mom.

"First of all, you'll get me all teary eyed," Gingrich warned at the outset of his response.

"My mother sang in the choir and loved singing in the choir. I don't know if I should admit this, when I was very young. She made me sing in the choir," he said, wiping away a tear. "But I identify my mother with being happy, loving life, having a sense of joy in her friends, but what she introduced me to is late in her life she ended up in a long term care facility, she had bipolar disease and depression, and she gradually acquired some physical elements."

The emotional display comes at a particularly fragile moment for Gingrich's campaign. In just about a month, he's slid from frontrunner status in Iowa's caucuses to flfth place, according to today's NBC News-Marist poll. Over that time, Gingrich has been besieged by negative ads by super PACs and rival campaigns; he's vowed to stay positive and has responded by challenging competitors to take down their ads. He hasn't had much pushback on air in part because of his campaign's low cashflow.

Those attacks may have worn on Gingrich, whose outburst Friday is almost reminiscent of 2008, when Hillary Clinton broke into tears at a campaign stop in New Hampshire when reflecting on the difficulties of the campaign trail. That moment was interpreted to have helped Clinton politically.

Pausing again, Gingrich said that if he could talk to his mom now he would say "I will do everything I can as a candidate to be worthy" of her, and her generation's sacrifice.

At another point during his answer, Gingrich quipped: "I do policy a lot better than I do personal."

WEST DES MOINES, IOWA -- Undeterred by the cold or by a steady drizzle, some 600 Iowans came out this morning to hear Mitt Romney, along with his surrogate and enforcer, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, rally the troops before Tuesday's Iowa caucus begins the 2012 primary campaign in earnest.

Romney, as he has done all week in Iowa, set the stakes for 2012 high, telling the crowd the race was not about just changing occupants of the oval office, but also about "saving the soul of America."

No one wages that fight better than Christie, said Romney; the New Jersey governor returned the favor.

"As we always do every four years, America's watching Iowa and Iowa's gonna be, gonna be the folks who are gonna help to start this process to get us going to make sure that the Republican Party nominates the very best person to take on President Obama in November," Christie told the shivering crowd. "Now when you look at that stage in these debates, I think you've gotta come to the conclusion I've come to: there is no person better qualified by his experience and his character to take on Barack Obama and to lead the United States of America than Gov. Mitt Romney"

Christie also jokingly warned the crowd that there would be consequences if they did not support Romney at Tuesday's caucuses. Christie said that he would return to Iowa "Jersey Style," a statement with different, but equally terrifying meaning, to fans of "The Sopranos" and "Jersey Shore" alike.

And while Romney largely focused his message today on sweeping patriotic themes and his own "business guy" credentials, the pugnacious New Jersey governor made certain to dispense some harsh words for President Obama in his closing thought.

"President Barack Obama came out to Iowa three years ago and he talked to you about hope and change.  Well let me tell you, after three years of Obama, we are hopeless and changeless and we need Mitt Romney to bring us back, to bring America back," Christie said.