Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry stepped back onto the national stage on Thursday to accuse President Barack Obama of "hysteria" over the sequester -- and to make a not-so-subtle swipe at Mitt Romney, who beat him in the 2012 primary.

"The popular media narrative is that this country has shifted away from conservative ideas, as evidence by the last two presidential elections. That’s what they think, that’s what they say," Perry told the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday afternoon. "That might be true if Republicans had actually nominated conservative candidates in 2008 and 2012."

Perry was referring in part to Romney, who struggled for years to win over the conservative activists that populate gatherings like CPAC. Romney is slated to speak again to the gathering on Friday.

Perry's speech at the confab -- for years a draw for conservative politicians with national aspirations -- was the first of several scheduled for 2012 GOP hopefuls who lost to Romney.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum is scheduled to speak, as is former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

In his speech, Perry criticized Obama for playing politics with the sequester.

"What we are getting is a lot of hysteria," he said. "We're getting a lot of hysteria right now from a president more concerned about the next election than saving programs like Medicare."

Perry singled out the government's decision to release more than 2,000 illegal immigrants because of budget concerns related to the sequester.

"This president's posture, it'd be laughable if he hadn't taken it one step too far, dangerously releasing criminals onto our streets to make a political point," Perry said of Obama. "When you have a federally-sponsored jailbreak -- and don't get confused, that's exactly what that is -- when you've had a federally-sponsored jailbreak, you've crossed the line from politics of spin to politics as a craven form of cynicism."

Perry criticized the Medicaid expansion that's included as part of Obama's health care plan -- an expansion that several Republican governors have accepted in other states, including Florida and Michigan.

"The Medicaid expansion amounts to one large, incremental step towards single-payer socialized medicine. That’s where we headed and I for one will not accept that as long as I’m governor of the state of Texas," he said.

Rick Perry's back, and doing his best Clint Eastwood impression.

"If it's halftime in America," he said, invoking the "Dirty Harry" actor's recent appearance in a controversial Chrysler ad during last weekend's Super Bowl --  "I'm fearful of what the final score is going to be if we let this president start the second half as quarterback."

In his second public appearance since dropping out of the presidential race, Perry quipped at today's conservative CPAC gathering that the clock ran out on his own presidential campaign as well.

"Aggies never lose," he said, referencing the mascot of his alma mater Texas A&M. "We just run out of time. So you can say that my presidential campaign just ran out of time. But I haven't run out on the ideas."

While he warned against settling for a new president would would simply "tinker" with existing policies, Perry did not mention any remaining GOP candidates by name.

That omission included Newt Gingrich, whom he endorsed when he dropped out of the race in North Charleston on Jan. 19. Perry also didn't mention the former House Speaker during a speech in Austin last week.

In warmly received remarks to the conservative confab Thursday, Perry revisited many of his rhetorical highlights from his campaign, including populist anti-corruption tones and a harsh critique of President Barack Obama's "war on religion."

The Texas governor won limited traction last year when he slammed the Obama administration for its clashes with Catholic bishops over federal funding, but the issue is now the subject of searing debate after the White House's controversial mandate for most employers to provide copay-free health coverage for birth control prescriptions.

Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA

Rick Perry waits to greet Iowans at the Santa Maria Vineyard and Winery in Carroll, Iowa, Jan. 2, 2012.

CHARLESTON, SC -- It was in a cramped Myrtle Beach coffee shop, just hours before the debate that would prove to be his last, when Rick Perry swallowed hard, looked at his wife Anita, and peered into his political future. 

"If I just had to walk away from all this," the governor said, his voice catching on a lump of exhaustion that seemed to have been growing in his throat for days, "If she was walking with me, it'd all be okay." 

To the focus group of mothers gathered in the room, the moment was a touching expression of the couple's love in the face of adversity. But longtime followers of Perry saw something else too: the first real glimmer of the undefeated Texan's understanding that his once-mighty presidential campaign was finally in the last ungraceful throes of its death. 

Two days later, Perry would be peering at the menu board at a Charleston-area Wendy's restaurant and telling top communications aide Ray Sullivan that he'd be ending his five month campaign in the morning.  The press conference was held in a nondescript airport hotel meeting room ... just 14 miles from where he launched his campaign in the glitzy Francis Marion ballroom.

"Now the journey leads us back to Texas," he declared after he suspended his campaign. "Neither discouraged nor disenchanted, but instead rewarded for the experience and resolute to remain in the arena and in the service of a great nation." 

Slideshow: A look at Gov. Rick Perry's political career

Mark Lambie / El Paso Times via AP

A look at the Texas governor's bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

Launch slideshow

In his farewell remarks, Perry thanked advisors Nelson Warfield and Mari Will -- both relative newcomers to his team after an October shakeup that resulted in a deep divide between the governor's old guard and fresh blood. 

Unnamed by the governor in his thank-yous to staff and key endorsers were de-facto campaign chief Joe Allbaugh, onetime manager Rob Johnson, and Perry's original political maestro and friend of 13 years, Dave Carney. 

***** 

Everything was going pretty much as planned until Orlando. 

A month after Perry swaggered into the GOP race, a steady stream of fundraisers (which filled up the candidate's schedule at the expense of fulfilling even a fraction of the interview requests that flooded in to Austin) meant that the campaign's war chest was in the same league as Mitt Romney's, the frontrunner in the campaign until that point.

Perry seemed to be aptly navigating away from the Bible-thumping caricature from opponents who snarked about his "calling from God" to run for president and his "praying for rain" in the face of devastating drought. Michele Bachmann's damaging attack over Perry's support for an HPV vaccine for young girls had been substantially blunted by her self-inflicted wound the next day when she overstated the side effects of the medication. 

But after Perry's indignant comment at a Sept. 22 debate that those who opposed offering in-state tuition for the children of illegal immigrants "don't have a heart," the ascendant governor's momentum was abruptly knocked off course by a lower-than-expected finish in the Presidency 5 straw poll. 

After the loss, spokesman Mark Miner grimly marched into the press area and spun the results as a loss for Romney, surprising reporters used to a cagey press operation that frequently ignored email requests for responses or interviews. But little more was done to mitigate the damage. A full six days later, during an interview with conservative web site Newsmax, Perry finally apologized for the "heartless" comment. 

The night of the P5 loss, Alec Baldwin lampooned Perry as sleepy and disoriented during the season premier of NBC's Saturday Night Live.

The Perry parody, which would go through several iterations before settling on "just plain dumb," was born. 

*****

In Orlando, Carney and Johnson met with former Dole aide Nelson Warfield, the strategist who would later be the chief advocate of a controversial television ad taking aim at gay soldiers. Carney brought on Warfield and Washington-based pollster Tony Fabrizio to augment a team swiftly recognizing the consequences of Perry's late entry into the presidential contest. 

"At the end of the day, this thing needed to have started two months before it did," said Perry's South Carolina chair Katon Dawson, who along with Carney and Johnson had defected from Gingrich's flagging campaign in June. 

At the urging of first lady Anita Perry, Texan strategist Joe Allbaugh also began to help advise the campaign. Allbaugh, George W. Bush's former campaign manager, was preceded by a reputation for steadiness, experience and no-nonsense discipline. 

With the arrival of new talent, a reboot appeared possible. The new team --  including Fabrizio, Warfield and media strategist Curt Anderson  -- instituted a rigorous interview and TV ad schedule for the candidate.

When Perry's utterance of "oops" during CNBC's Michigan debate forever entered the political lexicon on Nov. 7, the campaign responded with an unprecedented swiftness -- ushering the self-deprecating candidate to confront reporters in the debate spin room and scheduling light-hearted media appearances to blunt the damage.

But as Carney and Allbaugh's conflicting visions clashed, communication between the two camps disintegrated. Longtime Texas aides began to be cut out of major discussions. On at least one occasion, Allbaugh chose to meet with consultants at the Steven F. Austin hotel -- across the street from the campaign headquarters on Congress Avenue. 

As Perry publicly insisted to reporters that rumors of campaign manager Rob Johnson's demotion were "just scuttlebutt," the Arkansas native was being dispatched far away from the Austin headquarters to work in early campaign states. Carney was sequestered in New Hampshire. 

The famed "vault" -- the thick-walled box in the center of Perry HQ that had served as Carney and Johnson's office -- stood empty. 

Perry's poll numbers continued their decline, and some of the new class of consultants began to grumble to reporters about the after-effects of early disorganization on the part of Carney and his original team. Longtime Perry loyalists fumed at damaging leaks that went undisciplined by Allbaugh or by the candidate himself. 

"There was a misguided sense from the Washington consultants that the simple-minded Texans messed everything up and they were going to rise to the rescue," said Sullivan. "And it didn't work out that way."

The governor's performances continued to be uneven, with Perry alternating between energetically sharp and distractedly rambling even at consecutive campaign appearances. The staff was sometimes left wondering which version of their candidate would show up on a given day. 

And "oops" haunted him. While advisers later determined that the famed "brain freeze" might have been surmountable were it not for Perry's "heartless" debacle, the narrative cake -- unhelped by Perry's Bush-like drawl and his infirm grasp on issues outside his economic expertise as governor -- was already baked.  Errors big and small were amplified into "yet another oops." 

In New Hampshire, when Perry inaccurately pegged the voting age at 21, the moment launched hundreds of headlines. In Iowa, when Perry misspoke in naming "the country Solyndra" (which he'd correctly identified as a solar energy *company* at scores of campaign events before), observers questioned whether he was aware it was not in fact a sovereign nation.  In South Carolina, Sullivan and traveling spokesman Mark Miner bewilderedly fielded calls from reporters who read in an Los Angeles Times dispatch that Perry had mistaken a mannequin for a human person at a town hall. (He was joking.) 

Every bumble -- real or imagined -- had its cost. 

*****

If Perry's endorsement of Newt Gingrich last Thursday served as the funeral ceremony for his campaign, the wake came 16 days earlier when his fifth place finish in the Iowa caucuses appeared to snuff out the last flicker of his staff's hopes for salvaging their dreams of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. 

Early December polling indicated a fluid race in Iowa, where Perry had assembled a formidable team and "strike force" operation made up largely of Texas allies. Albeit often in small venues, the campaign still packed in Iowans willing to give Perry a "second look." His debate performances improved, and an unforced error from Romney offering Perry a bet of $10,000 during a Des Moines debate underscored Perry's populist message. 

In the days before launching his 44-stop bus tour in the state, the Texas governor painted the picture of a new man, blaming his early stumbles on pain resulting from his June back surgery, toppling months of denials from Perry's press staff that the operation had any impact on his performances. 

"Frankly I didn't know the impact it was having on me from the standpoint of just being fatigued and it showed up in the first few debates," he said on Sean Hannity's radio program on Jan. 13. "I have never felt better and I think you saw a glimpse of what you can expect out of me as we go forward in that last debate we had in Iowa." 

Again, hope glimmered, but not for long. 

Two weeks before the caucuses, influential conservatives at the Family Leader seemed on the verge of throwing their support behind Perry.

Senior staff in Iowa heard rumblings of the potentially game-changing endorsement from the group on the evening before the Dec. 20 press conference. But the group ultimately declined formal support of any candidate, and its chief members independently boosted Rick Santorum instead. 

Crowds shrunk. After the Christmas holiday, Perry took on Santorum's previous support for earmarks in his most direct negative ad yet, but the slam didn't seem to stick. 

On the morning of Dec. 31, an anonymously sourced story in POLITICO finally aired in spectacular fashion the grievances of the new class of Perry advisers, who eviscerated Carney and Johnson as inept in handling the media and unprepared for the immigration onslaught. 

The sting of the story -- particularly burning because of its publication days before the caucuses -- went uncontested by Austin, with the only voice in response being some tempered on-the-record pushback from Sullivan. (Carney, who was only briefly quoted, had long been detached from the campaign.) 

The Texans, concerned about derailing their famously micromanagement-averse boss with internal distractions, never confronted Perry about the story. Defeat was already all but written, in any case. 
They slogged on. 

After Perry announced that he would "reassess" his campaign after the disappointing caucus night finish three days later, Perry's top Texas aides walked out of the ballroom and into the bar at the West Des Moines Sheraton expecting a dropout press conference in Austin within 48 hours. 

As staffers and surrogates mingled until last call in the hotel's Waterfall Grille Restaurant & Lounge - and bartenders scurried into the bar's reserves for extra tequila for the Texans -- they spoke about the campaign in the past tense, and disdain for the Washington consultants flowed as readily as the drinks. (Allbaugh and others had long since retreated to their rooms.)

At one point, journalists still filing their stories in the lobby heard a cheer so deafening that a few sprinted to see what they assumed must be a guest appearance by the governor himself.

It wasn't Perry, but Johnson. Still beloved by the Austin footsoldiers, he offered a rousing speech to his exhausted and relieved team, sporting a navy blue Perry for President fleece -- a gift from the staff -- personalized with just one word: "Hefe." 

The next morning, he -- along with Miner and the rest of the press staff as well as the lead advance men who would be charged with orchestrating the South Carolina Alamo -- found out from the governor's Twitter account that the campaign wasn't over yet. 

****** 

The night of the Iowa loss, Perry gathered with family and his close advisers in a hotel suite to discuss his path forward.  
Backer and close family friend Capt. Dan Moran, a former Marine who suffered severe burns to over half his body after an IED attack in 2006, was in the room.

Evan Vucci / AP

Republican presidential candidate Texas Gov. Rick Perry gets ready for an interview during a caucus night watch party Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2012, in West Des Moines, Iowa.

With Perry's wife and son Griffin on board to continue the campaign, Moran -- whose fierce admiration for the governor had been on display during a series of fiery speeches to Iowa voters that week -- alluded to his own physical struggle in voicing his support for a last-ditch effort to rescue the campaign. 

"Sir, I didn't get these scars on my face to quit," he told the governor. 

By announcing the next morning that he would continue his presidential run into South Carolina, Perry earned a collective "wait, what?" from the political world and from most of his own campaign team. Moran was one of the few who wasn't surprised by the decision. 

With a roiling field and resistance to an "inevitable" Romney nomination, Perry could have been in a position to catch a late wave in the Palmetto State. But even his allies in the state conceded that Perry needed a "lucky break" to begin courting back the social conservatives and veterans most ideologically aligned with his platform. And he'd have to do it with fewer resources, less vocal endorsers, and a badly damaged political brand. 

Gone was the shiny "Faith, Jobs, and Freedom" bus that had schlepped Perry to over 40 cities in Iowa. Gone were the national political backers who loyally stood by his side before the caucuses, as press staff gradually stopped pretending that former advocates Govs. Bobby Jindal or Sam Brownback would be in the state on Perry's behalf. 

And his final gamble backfired. According to aides, it was Perry himself who coined the phrase "vulture capitalism" to describe Romney's practices at investment firm Bain capital.  

But the phrase disappeared from the candidate's vernacular within two days after some Perry backers publicly rebuked him. Previously supportive conservative commentators on FOX News accused him of leaning towards socialism, reducing the creator of over one million jobs in Texas to claiming he is the "probably the most pro-capitalist individual... in America."

"I think that FOX News jumped on us put us back on the mat again," said Dawson. "When they hit us and they stayed on us for a day we fell back again from the little bit of momentum we created by skipping New Hampshire."

Gingrich, who had employed the same line of attack against Romney's Bain days, was ascendant. Perry's poll numbers in the state that was once his conservative firewall dipped below five percent.  

Late in the afternoon on Jan. 18, Perry began informing advisors that he would drop out the following day.

***** 

Twenty-four hours before telling Sullivan about his decision under the fluorescent lights of a fast-food joint, the governor was praying. 

On stage at a prayer rally in Greenville, S.C., inspired by "The Response" event he masterminded in Texas last summer, Perry delivered remarks almost word-for-word to those he had given before that audience of 30,000 in a football stadium in August, at a time when history-making drought conditions had prompted the governor to urge citizens to pray for rain.

"His agenda’s not a political agenda," Perry said of God to several hundred worshippers -- a crowd tiny in comparison to the August audience packed into the home of the Houston Texans.  "He’s smarter than that. He’s smart enough, wise enough not to get involved with any political affiliation or any institution that man has made. He understands the imperfections of those." 

Sudden rumbling thunder shook the building as he spoke from Psalms 145 of a God who is slow to anger, and Perry raised his right arm to declare "Amen" in answer. 

As the governor left the stage, he was crying. And smiling. 

It was pouring in Greenville.

Carrie Dann (or as the candidate nicknamed her, "Lieutenant Dann") covered the Perry campaign as an embedded reporter for NBC News. Explore more of her Decision 2012 work here.

CHARLESTON, SC -- Despite revised results in the Iowa caucus showing he finished 24 votes ahead of Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum found his potential moment in the sun overshadowed Thursday by news that a rival Republican was exiting the race.

The Iowa GOP's official tally, until today, had Santorum losing to Romney by eight votes, but on Thursday the Republican Party of Iowa today released the certified tally, which gave Santorum a 34 vote advantage over Mitt Romney. NBC News will not declare a winner in the race.

But the questions the former Pennsylvania senator had faced throughout the day about the recount were paired with queries about Texas Gov. Rick Perry's departure from the race.

"We can win elections, we can organize, we can put together an effort to pull the resources together to be able to be successful in being the person that can defeat Mitt Romney because guess what, we defeated Mitt Romney in Iowa," Santorum said this morning about the revised results.

But the follow up about reaction to Perry leaving the race: "I know it's a tough day and it's been a tough process for them and my heart and prayers go out to them and congratulations to them on stepping up when you thought your country was calling you to try to make a difference."

Along with his announcement to leave the race, Perry also endorsed Newt Gingrich, a blow to Santorum, whose campaign is attempting to appeal to many of the same conservative voters Perry did. Still, after an appearance at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, Santorum maintained that anytime the field narrows is a good thing for him.

Speaking at the SRLC just moments before former presidential candidate Herman Cain, Santorum remained focused touting his Iowa victory. While how the development will impact Santorum in the polls remains unclear, campaign aides he said they have already seen a bump in fundraising.

Still, the former Pennsylvania senator is still struggling to compete with Gingrich and Romney in the Palmetto State, proclaiming only that he would show momentum here.

"We feel very, very good about what this win will mean," he said.

Updated 6:16 p.m.

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- After winning the support of former rival Rick Perry this morning, Newt Gingrich's endorsement momentum continued among members of South Carolina's political establishment as he picked up former supporters of Jon Huntsman and Perry, along with few influential GOP fundraisers.

Richard Quinn, Huntsman's top South Carolina strategist who worked for John McCain in 2008, is endorsing Gingrich along with his son Rick, a state senator who had also endorsed Huntsman. The senior Quinn had also worked as an adviser to Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign, an aspect of his resume Gingrich may soon highlight.

Mike Campbell, the son of former South Carolina Gov. Carroll Campbell, who also backed Huntsman, announced his support of Gingrich today. Bob McAlister, a former chief of staff to compbell who had aided the Huntsman and McCain campaigns, also backed Gingrich.

Several influential members of the South Carolina business community are also rallying behind Gingrich today including two former Huntsman backers: businessman John Rainey and Gayle Averyt, former chairman of the Colonial life insurance company. Former Tanzania ambassador Bob Royall, another bundler for Bush and McCain, also endorsed Gingrich.

Huntsman exited the race on Monday, and endorsed Mitt Romney -- not Gingrich -- in the GOP primary.

Those business leaders, as well as several of their friends and colleagues, met with Gingrich last week in an effort to coalesce around a candidate as they had done in 2000, when they rallied around George W. Bush, and 2008, when they endorsed McCain. They also considered Rick Santorum, who also spoke with the group last week.

Gingrich also nabbed a major former Perry backer, South Carolina state House Speaker Bobby Harrell, who was part of a 20-plus group of influential Republicans who endorsed Perry in late October. Another Perry supporter, South Carolina Rep. Mick Mulvaney, said today that he did not "anticipate endorsing any other candidate between now and Saturday."

While Gingrich seemed to collect up the most endorsements today, one influential Republican joined the Romney camp: David Wilkins, a former state House speaker and ambassador to Canada during George W. Bush's administration. (Wilkins' brother Billy, a prominent lawyer here, is a Gingrich supporter.)

Wilkins told NBC News today that he met Romney and his wife six years ago during a breakfast in Boston with other U.S. ambassadors.

NORTH CHARLESTON, SC -- Just over five months after his campaign began, Texas Gov. Rick Perry today exited the presidential race and endorsed former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

"I know when it's time to make a strategic retreat, so I will leave the trail and return home to Texas and wind down my 2012 campaign organization," the governor said in a cramped hotel ballroom here at a hastily-called press conference.

"As I have contemplated the future of this campaign, I have come to the conclusion that there is no viable path to victory for my candidacy in 2012," he said.

Spokesman Ray Sullivan told reporters that Perry made the decision to drop out late yesterday and alerted some senior staff last night. (Sullivan found out while eating at a Charleston area Wendy's.) His determination came as multiple conservative commentators were calling for his exit, and as several key endorsers in the state defected from his campaign.

Announcing his endorsement of Gingrich -- whom he had criticized during the campaign as a "Washington insider" and supporter of the individual mandate -- Perry alluded to the former speaker's checkered personal past.

"Newt is not perfect, but who among us is?" Perry said. "The fact is there is forgiveness for those who seek God, and I believe in the power of redemption, for it is a central tenet of my own Christian faith."

Perry -- himself an evangelical Christian who proudly cites that he married the first woman he dated as a young man -- was joined at the press conference by his wife Anita, his son Griffin, and "Lone Survivor" author and decorated veteran Marcus Luttrell and his wife.

"Now the journey leads us back to Texas, neither discouraged nor disenchanted, but instead rewarded for the experience and resolute to remain in the arena and in the service of a great nation," Perry said.

As did his decision to remain in the race after the Iowa caucuses, today's decision came as a surprise to many members of his staff on the ground, who believed that Perry might want to appear at one last redeeming debate after becoming famous for his shaky performances early in his run.

Sullivan said on Wednesday that Perry has not ruled out a run for re-election in Texas nor another run for president in 2016.

David Goldman / AP

Republican presidential candidate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry pauses while announcing he is suspending his campaign and endorsing Newt Gingrich, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012, in North Charleston, S.C.

Updated at 12:30 p.m. ET 

Texas Governor Rick Perry announced Thursday morning that he is dropping out of the presidential race and is endorsing Newt Gingrich for the Republican nomination.

"There is no viable path forward for me," he told supporters on Thursday. "I gave fully of myself for a cause worthy of this country," he added. Perry said it was time for him to make a "strategic retreat."

Spokesman Ray Sullivan told reporters after the announcement that money was a factor; that the campaign had gone through "the bulk of our friends." He added that Perry is not yet ruling out running for re-election as governor or making another play for the White House in four years.

Of Gingrich, Perry said Thursday, "Newt is not perfect, but who among us is?" Perry continued, "There is forgiveness for those who seek God." He applauded Gingrich as "a conservative visionary who can transform our country." 

The former House speaker watched Perry's speech from his campaign bus, parked outside of Beaufort, S.C. He said he was "honored and humbled" by the endorsement. He called Perry a "great patriot."

Gingrich's candidacy has been boosted by strong debate performances, with another debate scheduled for Thursday. But he's likely to receive more unflattering attention when ABC News airs an interview with his second wife, Marianne Gingrich. In the interview, Marianne Gingrich says Gingrich asked her for an "open marriage" in which he could have both a wife and a mistress, and she refused.

Story: Gingrich ex-wife says he sought 'open' relationship

Perry's withdrawal and endorsement of Gingrich is a further sign that he's emerging as the main rival to Romney, who has failed to persuade many Republicans of his conservative credentials.

Perry had faced calls to drop out of the race to compel conservative voters, whose support has been divided among several conservative candidates, to rally behind Gingrich in hopes of stopping Romney. Recent polls show Gingrich gaining steam heading into the South Carolina primary, but he still trails Romney by about 10 percentage points.

Saturday's contest has been seen as the pivotal battle in the race, following what had initially been declared a narrow victory for Romney in Iowa, the first nominating contest, and a solid Romney win in last week's New Hampshire primary. Since 1980, no Republican has won the presidential nomination without a victory in the state.

But Republican officials said Thursday that Rick Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, edged the former Massachusetts governor in Iowa by 34 votes, though no winner was declared because some votes remain missing.

Story: Santorum declares victory after revised Iowa caucus total

Perry entered the race last August to great fanfare and high poll numbers. But his standing quickly fell after a series of campaign blunders. During a nationally televised debate in early November, he could not remember the name of the third Cabinet department he had pledged to eliminate. "Oops," he told the audience. He later admitted of the gaffe, "I stepped in it."

Perry finished fifth in both Iowa and New Hampshire and, at one at one point said he was going to go back to Texas to reassess his path forward, but then headed to South Carolina instead.

Recommended: Rick Perry slideshow

Perry made his announcement to withdraw from the race just hours before Thursday night's GOP debate. He was joined on stage by his wife Anita and son, Griffin, and stressed that the Republican Party "transcends any one individual."

He said that "the campaign has never been about the candidates," and lamented, "a calling never guarantees a particular outcome."

GREENVILLE, S.C. -- As they quizzed four candidates on their positions on abortion, the moderators of a pro-life forum here gave each presidential hopeful an opportunity to take a jab at the one candidate who did not participate in the event: Mitt Romney.

One of the moderators at the event, sponsored by Personhood USA, told the crowd of at least 250 at the Greenville Hilton hotel that the Romney campaign said they had scheduling difficulties, but that a similar scheduling conflict arose during a similar event in Iowa.

Underscoring his absence, candidates were each asked to contrast their positions with those of Romney, or asked what they would handle certain situations differently than he did as Massachusetts governor.

"How would you differentiate your record and Gov. Romney's record on life?" one of the panelists at the forum, sponsored by Personhood USA, asked Rick Perry, the first of the candidates to speak.

"We don't have enough time," Perry said as the crowd laughed.

He said he took issue with Romney's switch from favoring abortion rights to being pro-life in his fifties, saying he would not have such a problem with it if his revelation had occurred earlier in life.

"In your fifties…  it was clear to most of us that this was a choice for convenience. This was a decision that Gov. Romney made for political convenience, not an issue of his heart."

Newt Gingrich was asked to address Romney's signing of 198 same-sex marriage licenses, which Romney said he was compelled to do by the state supreme court.
 
"Can a state or federal executive challenge a constitutional ruling when they believe it is clearly erroneous?" one of the moderators asked.

Gingrich began his answer not by talking about the marriage licenses, but by criticizing both Romney's switch on abortion and his signing into law the Massachusetts health care plan, which includes an individual mandate to buy insurance.

"Gov. Romney also, after becoming pro-life, passed Romneycare with taxpayer funded abortions," Gingrich said.
 
Continuing his attack against the former governor's shifting positions, Gingrich said "his administration approved paying for an abortion clinic for Planned Parenthood with state funds and he appointed pro-abortion and pro-gay marriage judges to the court. So in terms of who's likely to change Washington I would say that his track record has not only not changed but is in the opposite direction."

Both Rick Santorum's and Ron Paul's questions on Romney dealt at directly with the Massachusetts health care law.

The moderators linked Santorum's ultimate question - whether he would "lead the charge against Obamacare" - with Romney by saying that the Massachusetts plan formed a model for the national program; a seemingly tangential preamble.

"I wouldn't be in this race if it wasn't for Obamacare," Santorum said. "Obamacare makes every single American dependent on the federal government for health, for life… You have my assurance that we will repeal Obamacare."

And Paul's question was preface with an explanation about the seat permanently held by Planned Parenthood on the Massachusetts plan's payment policy advisory board.

"Would you use your appointment power as president to assure that pro-life advocates are represented in the federal government?" he was asked.

Paul said he would "absolutely" appoint such advocates if they were pro-liberty and believe in non-violence, which he said were the qualifying factors for being pro-life. But, he said, such a distinction would be unnecessary because there would be no advisory board similar to that in Massachusetts.

"This wouldn't be a problem because they're not going to get any money, we shouldn't even have one," Paul said.

A prominent conservative blogger joined the ranks of Republicans urging Rick Perry to end his campaign for president on Wednesday, prompting the Texas governor's campaign to reiterate that it has "no intention of leaving the race."

Perry spokesman Mark Miner rejected a new call by Erick Erickson, the editor of the conservative blog RedState, for Perry to drop out of the race and endorse former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

"Pundits are not going to decide this race, the people of SC are going to decide this race," Miner told NBC News. "We have no intention of leaving the race ... We are staying in the race until the primary."

Erickson called for Perry to drop out in a post on his blog this afternoon. The pundit argued that if Perry were to drop out before tomorrow night's CNN debate, it would have time to impact that gathering and Saturday's South Carolina primary in a way that would help give rise to Gingrich as the alternative to Mitt Romney, while restoring some of the political clout Perry had bled over the course of his campaign.

"Either Rick Perry will leave the race Sunday with no political capital and no deposit of goodwill an endorsement would bring, or he will choose to strike one final blow for limited government conservatism," he wrote.

Erickson wouldn't be the first conservative to urge Perry to leave the campaign. But his words carry some more significance considering it was at a gathering of RedState bloggers this summer where Perry launched his candidacy.

Miner dismissed Erickson's criticism, though, saying, "The governor is focused on the people of South Carolina, not a pundit sitting behind a computer."

But Erickson wasn't the only significant voice to call for Perry's ouster, reflecting the pressure under which the Texas governor is falling in the closing days of the South Carolina primary.

Major General James E. Livingston, a medal of honor recipient who was the state chair of Rick Perry's Veterans coalition, is dropping his support and going to the Gingrich campaign. Veterans are a major voting bloc in South Carolina's GOP primary, and Perry had courted that community assiduously.

Regarding his shift, Livingston said he wanted a candidate who can "be the one that can help take this crowd down in D.C." He said Perry "just was not able to reach that point in his political activities here in South Carolina," and called Gingrich "a known product."

"He's been there and done that," Livingston said of the former speaker, whom he'll endorse in a Friday night event aboard the USS Yorktown.

Asked for comment, Perry spokesman Ray Sullivan told NBC News that the governor "has the utmost respect for Gen. Livingston, his service and leadership, and he always will." 

FLORENCE, SC — Speaking to media during an impromptu press conference Tuesday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry twice mentioned rival Rick Santorum's Catholic faith in criticizing his record on fiscal issues.

"Rick Santorum is a good man, he is a good father, he’s a good Catholic," Perry, an evangelical Christian, said. "But he hasn’t always been a good conservative."

The casual but twice-repeated remark — the first time that Perry has publicly pointed to his rival's faith — attracted the attention of journalists because both men are competing to win evangelical voters in the final days before the South Carolina primary.

Perry attends a nondenominational evangelical church and speaks frequently of redemption and his refocus on faith after feeling "lost" in his late 20s.  After the exit of Rep. Michele Bachmann from the GOP presidential campaign, Perry was left remaining as the most vocal evangelical in the GOP field. (Both Santorum and Newt Gingrich are Catholic; Mitt Romney is Mormon. Ron Paul is Baptist but speaks far less frequently about his faith than the Texas governor.)

National reporters who had attended a Gingrich campaign event blocks away from The Drive In restaurant mobbed the governor as he made his way around its tables. Television reporters clambered onto tables and low walls to catch a glimpse of Perry as he chowed down on a gyro burger and onion rings with a state party official.

Despite his religious kinship with a substantial block of Republican primary voters, and his overt courting of socially conservative voters, Perry's campaign has failed to retain his early traction in South Carolina due to the gaffes and misstatements that deflated his frontrunner status.

Asked Tuesday whether he intends to travel on to another primary state after Saturday's vote — a possibility that seems dimmer by the day — Perry joked that he's concentrating on the Palmetto State but could take a victory lap akin to the vacation famously cited by Super Bowl winners.

"We’re headed to South Carolina, South Carolina, and South Carolina," he said. "Then we’ll go to Disney World.”