Fox News has confirmed Newt Gingrich met with Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades on Monday to talk about how the former House Speaker can assist as a surrogate and fundraiser for the presumptive Republican nominee.

At the meeting, the Romney campaign also offered to connect Gingrich with their network of donors as a way to help retire some of his campaign debts. The March FEC filing shows Gingrich holding $4.3 million in debts at the end of the month, although the campaign emphasizes that half a million has since been paid off and there is a plan in place to pay the rest.

"The Romney campaign will give us access to some of their networks but it will be our responsibility to raise the money," said Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond. "While campaigning in support of Romney, the party, and congressional candidates, we will also hold separate events to raise money to pay off debts."

Gingrich will announce the suspension of his presidential campaign on Wednesday at the Hilton in the Ballston neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia.

The face-to-face meeting with Rhoades took place just across the street from the hotel at Gingrich's campaign headquarters. The meeting came after nearly two weeks of talks between the campaigns, including conversations between Gingrich and Romney adviser Ed Gillespie.

At the meeting, Gingrich offered some of his ideas and suggestions to the Romney campaign, especially on the importance of minority outreach. (read more)

Newt Gingrich's March FEC report shows the campaign holds $4.3 million dollars in debt and has $1.22 million cash on hand. The campaign raised $1.6 million in March but spent $2.01 million.

The numbers, filed after the network evening shows Friday and first released to Fox, raise questions about whether the campaign can ever pay off all its debts, with Gingrich having failed to notch a win after the Georgia primary. Meanwhile, the candidate has continued his public schedule and his wife Callista has made her own solo campaign trips in recent weeks, racking up major debts in travel and security expenses along the way. Callista is not assigned any Secret Service protection and goes on the road with private security.

At the end of February, the campaign reported that it had $1.55 million in debt, and the significant swell of red ink is a reflection of an internal audit that began in March. From Gingrich's South Carolina primary win all the way through to his loss in Louisiana, Gingrich had an active public schedule involving extensive travel and the paperwork didn't keep up. Sources with inside knowledge of the campaign say the only aspect that has been consistent within Gingrich's operation has been that it is run according to ever-changing guideposts. The candidate is said to have told staffers during the peak of his candidacy that costs shouldn't be a factor when he gave his directives. Projects could be green lighted and then cancelled at whim, with confusing and costly consequences. (read more)

Frederick, Md. - Newt Gingrich says the finish line for Mitt Romney's path to the GOP nomination is further down the road than what current delegate counts indicate.

The longshot hopeful, who has said he won't get out of the race until Romney secures 1144 delegates, is stressing that the delegates have to be "uncontested" in order to count. The frontrunner's rivals argue some of the states that awarded Romney all of their delegates violated Republican National Committee rules when they moved their contests ahead of April 1 and therefore should distribute delegates proportionally. This dispute, if it continues, would not be ruled on until the August convention in Tampa.

"All the media counts right now give him all of Florida, which is against the rules, all of Arizona, which is against the rules, and all of Idaho," Gingrich said Monday. "Those are all three proportional states and they should only be counting his share. So he has to win 1,144 uncontested delegates."

The audience that had gathered to see him at the auto dealership here in Maryland was loud and enthusiastic, but Gingrich admitted that the odds he'll be the nominee are slim. (read more)

Denied all immediate avenues to securing the nomination and working with little more than the sheer force of his personality, Newt Gingrich arrived on the campus of Georgetown Tuesday ready to talk about big ideas and take questions from students  – but definitely, it was clear, not from the press.

Whisked in and out of the auditorium by Secret Service, Gingrich effectively dodged the Washington press corp that had gathered in numbers to catch him at his first public appearance since his campaign officially announced it was laying off a third of its already guerilla-sized campaign staff and replacing the campaign manager.

“There are two large principles that led me to decide to run for president,” Gingrich began, in what would be a reiteration of the big ideas address he gave to students at Salisbury University in Maryland the day before. “And it has been an interesting process to try to communicate them and frankly much more difficult than I thought it would be. One was values and the other was innovation.”

He ranted about political leadership: “I would say the greatest frustration I’ve had since leaving the speakership is the denseness of Washington in resisting new ideas.” (read more)

Painting an optimistic scenario for his presidential bid Monday evening, Newt Gingrich told Sean Hannity that on the “very real chance” Mitt Romney falls “over a hundred votes short” of 1,144 delegates, it would be “almost impossible for him to close the gap” in a brokered convention.

“We’ll basically have a national electronic convention,” Gingrich envisioned of the days leading up to the Tampa convention where candidates would need to slug it out for the nomination.

“I can imagine a circumstance for example where they suspended the keynote address on the first night and actually had a presidential debate in front of the delegates of the candidates. You can imagine a whole process that’s totally different from what we’ve ever seen.”

Dismissing the idea that a prolonged nominating process would undermine Republican chances in the general election, Gingrich said keeping up the contest would keep President Obama "on defense."

“The later we get a nominee, the less time Obama has to smear the nominee,” Gingrich said. "They’re going to raise the billion dollars but what if they don’t know who to attack? What if they don’t know exactly what they’re doing?” (read more)

Amid questions of whether there’s enough campaign cash to sustain Newt Gingrich’s vow to stay in the race, a new fundraising tactic was employed at his first public appearance here in Delaware: photos with the candidate for $50 apiece.

At high dollar fundraisers, the campaign has asked for $250 donations in return for a photo op with the candidate, but this was the first public event where supporters were asked to commit a donation in return for a photo. Until Monday, Gingrich has happily obliged anyone who wanted to snap pictures with him at his rallies.

“Some campaigns make you travel all the way to Wall Street to pay $2,500 for a photo with the candidate,” said spokesman R.C. Hammond in an email to reporters contextualizing the new move. “We are trying out a new tactic and asking or supporters at our rallies for a nominal donation.”

“And guess what, it is working,” he continued. “We have over 175,000 doors who contribute on average $50 to $100 at a time.” (read more)

In an effort to quell the firestorm he ignited earlier this week, on Friday GOP presidential nominee Rick Santorum said, "I always have said I would vote for the nominee of the Republican Party, no matter who it was."

Poised to do well in Saturday's Louisiana GOP presidential primary, a defensive Santorum sought to explain comments he made earlier in the week, when he suggested fellow candidate Mitt Romney and President Obama are so similar on the issues, Republicans might just as well vote to give the president a second term instead of casting ballots for Romney.

In a phone interview with Fox News channel's Neil Cavuto, a fiery Santorum said, "This is a made-up story...That's just absurd. It's laughable. The idea this is a gaffe is a joke."

His comments followed a written statement the campaign released earlier in the day, that said, "I would never vote for Barack Obama over any Republican and to suggest otherwise is preposterous."

It went on to blame Mitt Romney and the media for the attention his comments have gotten, and read in part, "This is just another attempt by the Romney Campaign to distort and distract the media and voters from the unshakeable fact that many of Romney's policies mirror Barack Obama's." (read more)

HOUMA, Lousiana -- Brandishing an Etch a Sketch, Newt Gingrich told diners at Big Al's Seafood that the story which has been dogging the Romney campaign since Wednesday morning makes sense because of Romney's reputation for evolving positions.

"Given everything people have said about Governor Romney's flip-flops this just reminded people of what everybody has been afraid of," said Mr. Gingrich.

Polling in Lousiana shows Mr. Gingrich running neck and neck with Romney for second place here. "If you're serious about changing Washington, you can't do it with an Etch a Sketch," the former House Speaker told a receptive crowd.

Meanwhile Rick Santorum was in San Antonio, Texas, blasting Romney for the second day in a row over his aide's suggestion that Romney can reset his whole campaign like an etch a sketch for the head to head battle against President Obama.

"All the things that allow Romney to win the primary, are unavailable to him to win the general, and that's why you see these etch a sketch comments because he knows what he's doing now can't win, so he has to reset everything and figure out another way to win this election," said Santorum. (read more)

Newt Gingrich believes he can still thwart a Mitt Romney candidacy by forcing a brokered convention, but renewed focus on a simple Republican National Committee rule is a reminder of how unlikely that scenario would be.

Gingrich has only notched two first places finishes so far in the nominating calendar, which means that if he makes it to the convention without collecting a majority of delegates in three more states, he will fail to meet the five-state threshold required to qualify for the first ballot. This is according to RNC Rule No. 40, which states:

"Each candidate for nomination for the president of the United States and vice president of the United States shall demonstrate the support of a plurality of delegates from each of five (5) or more states, severally, prior to the presentation of the name of that candidate for nomination."
 
That doesn’t ruin his chances, his supporters say, because a motion can still be made in subsequent rounds of voting to add his name back into the mix. All that would be needed is for the candidate to collect enough unbound delegates (more and more free up with each voting round) to demonstrate he has a majority of their support in five states. (read more)

Carpentersville, IIl. - Newt Gingrich has made it abundantly clear he enjoys getting a rise out of the White House, and seeing the president take the bait on gas prices, the candidate quickly seized the opportunity to respond.

President Obama defended alternative energy investments while addressing a community college in Maryland Thursday, arguing there is no short-term solution to fluctuating gas prices and mocking his Republican rivals' calls for more domestic drilling.

"If some of these folks were around when Columbus set sail, they must have been founding members of the Flat Earth Society," he said. "They would not have believed that the world was round."

The president left his rivals unnamed, but Gingrich has repeatedly mocked him for being "President Algae" and there was little doubt Gingrich was at the center of Obama's critique.

"The president attacked my policies a few minutes ago and I just want to respond directly to the president," Gingrich announced during an impromptu media avail with reporters while touring Otto Manufacturing -- just hours after the president's speech. He hadn't taken questions from the traveling press since before Super Tuesday. (read more)