Gingrich Campaign Fights to Stay Alive

Newt Gingrich may be out even before his first trip to Iowa.

His campaign is in a damage control frenzy, even as it had been slow to react after the Georgia Republican blasted U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan's much-touted plan to overhaul Medicare, Politico reports.

Gingrich went on Greta Van Susteren's show Tuesday night, retracting some of his earlier comments calling Ryan's plan "radical," and trying to hold off the avalanche of GOP attacks.

He held a press conference and he called Ryan to apologize.

“The fact is that I have supported what Ryan’s trying to do on the budget,” Gingrich told Van Susteren. “The budget vote is one that I am happy to say I would have voted for.”

Whether this will assuage the various GOP leaders who'va attacked is unclear.

"The chorus of voices criticizing the former House speaker has only grown louder, drawing in Republicans as prominent as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley," Politico reports.

“The problem for Newt is, this is exactly what everybody who has ever worked for or around him said was his basic problem,” Rich Galen, the veteran Republican strategist and former Gingrich aide told Politico. “Sooner or later, I suspect, unfortunately, the campaign will collapse from the top because people are going to say, ‘I love him and he’s really smart, but he can’t be president.’”

The campaign, Galen added, is “close to being functionally over.”