and he plummeted. how do you recover from that? >> well, gingrich was fourth with 14% of the vote, but the ever inventive gingrich seems to have a new and unusual strategy, a plan to join forces in some way with rick santorum who came within eight votes of beating mitt romney. last night gingrich heaped praise on santorum for running what he called a great, positive campaign. so when asked by radio anchor laura ingraham today if he could see a scenario under which he would align with santorum to beat romney, gingrich leaped. >> absolutely. of course. rick and i, we have a 20-year friendship, we are both rebels. if you take santorum and perry and bachman and gingrich, you get some sense of what a small minority romney really represents. >> though it's not entirely clear what gingrich has in mind, analysts say gingrich isn't his problem. santorum is, because he's