DELAVAN LAKE, Wisc. -- Despite news of a dramatic cutback in Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign staff, Rick Santorum is still refusing to call for the former House Speaker to leave the race.

"I think it is time for all the Republican candidates to coalesce behind me. You know, let's just have a conservative nominee to take on Barack Obama. Until that time happens, I'm not going to call on anyone to get out," Santorum said Tuesday night.

The former Pennsylvania senator spent the day campaigning through Wisconsin.  As he greeted patrons at restaurant here during his last stop, reporters told him of the reports that Gingrich had cut a third of his paid staff, including his campaign manager.  The news was met with a wince and head shake.

"One of the things I was told very early on in presidential politics is that you run for president as long as the money hangs on," said Santorum.  "Obviously, financially, it's tough. I can certainly understand that. So, I don't know what his plans are. As I've said before, were going to run the race irrespective of who's in and who's out."

Santorum said his campaign has not reached out to Gingrich, but that they "exchanged pleasantries" when they both met with the same group of reporters in Washington, DC on Monday.

Though Santorum has continually refused to call on Gingrich to leave the race, both he and senior staffers have blamed the waning GOP candidate for cutting into his vote totals and preventing a serious challenge to frontrunner Mitt Romney. Senior strategist John  Brabender has in the past openly welcomed Gingrich to be a top voice for Santorum's campaign and has also said they would like to hire his staffers.

But even as a contender fades away, the road continues to be a tough one for Santorum.  Polls show him struggling in the Badger State, where he is being heavily outspent.

He'll spend the majority of the time between now and Tuesday's primary in Wisconsin.

FRANKSVILLE, Wis. -- What started as a good day for Rick Santorum took an abrupt turn on Sunday after the GOP presidential candidate grew frustrated with reporters asking him to clarify his remark that Mitt Romney is the worst Republican in the country to take on President Obama.

During his final campaign stop of the day here, Santorum said of Romney, “Pick any other Republican in the country, he is the worst Republican in the country to put up against Barack Obama." The comments, Santorum would clarify, were in reference to the similarities between Romney's and the president on the issue of health care. It is a common critique he levels against his chief rival, but never has the former Pennsylvania senator called Romney the "worst Republican in the country" to go head-to-head with the president.

When pressed by reporters to clarify his statement, Santorum said, “On the issue of health care. That’s what I was talking about, and I was very clear about talking about that. OK? Come on guys, don’t do this. I mean you guys are incredible. I was talking about Obamacare, and he is the worst because he was the author of Romneycare.”

But the questions struck a chord with Santorum, and when he faced the same question again, he used a profane word and accused the media of "distorting" his speech.

However a press release sent out from the Santorum campaign shortly after the rally here seemed to double down on the candidate's comments. "Rick Santorum spoke plainly and clearly that of all the Republicans in the field, Mitt Romney is the worst possible candidate to take on Barack Obama, because Mitt Romney authored the blueprint for Obamacare and the issue of healthcare would be off the table," the release said.

Santorum has done a lot of clarifying lately, with recent comments suggesting Obama would be a better choice than Romney in a general election and saying the unemployment rate will not affect his campaign. In both cases, he accused the media and his opponents of taking his words out of context. But in both cases, the Romney campaign used his own words against him.

Sunday's remarks were no exception, with Romney spokesperson Ryan Williams telling reporters, “Rick Santorum is becoming more desperate and angry and unhinged every day...He’s panicking in the final stages of his campaign.”

Before his last event, Santorum had been all smiles on the trail the day after receiving nearly double the amount of support Romney did in the Louisiana primary.  Along with two rallies today, the GOP hopeful also fit in brunch at the Machine Shed and, for the second time in as many days, a few frames of bowling. In an earlier rally in Fond du Lac, WI, Santorum drew an overflow crowd.

But by Sunday's end, Romney advisers were using the hash tag "Tantorum" to draw attention to past instances of the former senator losing his cool. The response blasted out by the Santorum campaign no mention of his use of a not so family friendly word.

Santorum heads to Washington, DC where he will spend Monday before returning to the Badger State later in the week.

GREENVILLE, S.C. – Touching down in the Palmetto State for just a few hours, Rick Santorum said he wanted to get a head start on campaigning here before candidates start flooding the state on January 11th.

“I wanted to plant the flag here before New Hampshire,” Santorum told reporters before his rally at Chiefs sports bar here, where more than 200 supporters greeted him with a hero’s welcome of whooping and applause.

Santorum’s whirlwind afternoon, capped off with an endorsement from influential conservative leader Gary Bauer, was a marked departure from his trips here before he picked up steam in Iowa, said former Rep. Gresham Barrett, Santorum’s South Carolina chair.

“For the first six months, ten months, we would do an event and we’d have one person, two people, ten, you know, 25 was fantastic,” Barrett told NBC News.

“You feed off this kind of excitement and it’s indicative of what we saw in Iowa, what we’re seeing in New Hampshire and I believe how we’re going to do in South Carolina.”

Santorum made a point to emphasize the centrality of South Carolina – which has picked every Republican nominee since 1980 – to his electoral prospects.

“We cannot win without you,” he told the crowd at Chiefs, asking them to give him a win similar to that which propelled Ronald Reagan to the nomination in 1980, after he lost New Hampshire to George H.W. Bush.

“Ronald Reagan won South Carolina because South Carolina said to the country, we want stark contrasts,” Santorum said. “South Carolina can deliver that message and if you do, I guarantee you that we will have the horses available to go and run this table and you will keep your record intact.”

Santorum, who navigated the crowd with his arm around his wife Karen, added that his whole family would be in South Carolina for the run-up to the vote – even his toddler daughter Bella, who suffers from a rare genetic disorder.

“We knew that breathing some of this free air here in South Carolina would be good for her lungs,” Santorum said. “This is the first state where we’ve put everybody in place. We are going to crisscross this state between now and January 21st.”

In addition to his family, Santorum will have influential Christian conservative leader Gary Bauer in his corner. Bauer, a 2000 presidential candidate who served in both Reagan administrations, praised Santorum as “the next Ronald Reagan” while introducing him at Stax restaurant here.

“For me, Ronald Reagan has always defined what the right political prescription was for the United States,” Bauer said. “As I listened to [Santorum], I realized the next Ronald Reagan had been standing in front of me all this time and I hadn’t been paying attention.”

While Santorum said he was humbled to be compared to the conservative icon, he added that Bauer was qualified to make such a statement.

“I shrink from that to be compared with Ronald Reagan,” he said before adding, “If Gary Bauer says this is the Reagan conservative, he knows better than anyone else in this country who the Reagan conservative is.”

Santorum also urged the crowd at Stax, mostly Republicans from Greenville County, a socially conservative part of the state’s Upstate region (which had the highest voter turnout in 2008), to choose their nominee wisely.

“South Carolina has to speak clearly, particularly in the Upstate, that we do not need just a little better than what we have now; we need big change in Washington D.C.,” he said.

While Santorum urged South Carolina to vote with one voice, some influential conservatives like Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention have recently warned that too many candidates vying for the “anti-Romney” mantle might prevent South Carolina from, as Santorum put it, speaking clearly.

Bauer, however, said he would not join in with Land to encourage second-tier candidates to drop out of the race now so that conservatives could coalesce around one candidate – even if it boosted Santorum.

“I ran myself in 2000, I know what it feels like as a candidate when you’re working really hard and somebody suggests you drop out of the race so I’m not going to do that. But I do think it will naturally happen over time and probably sooner rather than later,” Bauer told NBC.

When Santorum was asked, however, whether other candidates need to drop out of the race to make room for him, he warmed, half-jokingly, to the notion. “It would be nice if everybody did,” he said as reporters chuckled. “I mean, sure, if everybody drops out and says, ‘yeah, Rick’s the guy,’ I’d take  it.”

But until that happens, Santorum will still have to contend with current frontrunner Mitt Romney, whom Santorum prodded briefly at the NBC/Facebook debate over the former Massachusetts governor’s decision not to run for re-election.

When asked by NBC News why he seemed to back off after that singular jab against Romney, Santorum responded, “I don’t go in there to beat up on another candidate.”

That didn’t stop him, however, from touting his anti-Romney offensive during his rally at Chiefs.

“I still have some blood on my sleeve from Mitt Romney after that debate,” Santorum said as the crowd burst into cheers.

DES MOINES, Iowa – With only 20 days until the Iowa caucuses, four GOP candidates made their pitch to social conservatives tonight at the premiere of an anti-abortion documentary narrated by the former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum addressed the 1200 person crowd before the house lights dimmed for the “The Gift of Life” premiere.

“I do want you to take note,” Huckabee told the crowd. “There were four candidates who cleared their schedules, and made this a priority event.”

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, trailing in Iowa polls, won the biggest applause from the crowd tonight – and aimed his remarks at his competitors.

“I have some problems with some of the folks who running for office these days when they say, ‘I believe life begins at conception.’  That’s like, I say, ‘I believe the sun rises.’” Santorum said, to laughs.

“Why would you say you believe something that’s a fact?” Santorum added. It seemed to be a reference, at least in part, to Gingrich, who spoke minutes earlier in favor of a congressional bill that would define personhood as beginning at conception – though Santorum said later tonight he was talking about a number of his opponents. "I know that there have been several candidates for president who have stated they believe life begins at conception – and as I said, it’s not a belief, its a fact," Santorum told NBC News.

During her remarks, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann attacked the Obama administration for considering – before reversing course – making the “Plan B” morning-after pill available on pharmacy shelves, “where little girls could find it next to bubble gum and next to M&M’s."

"President Obama is so tied up in his reelection that even he knew that was one step too far,” Bachmann said. Governor Rick Perry touted his record defunding Planned Parenthood in Texas, where he said 12 clinics have closed as a result. He called the new film a tactic in the fight against abortion, saying, “imagine the difference you can make not in just one life, but in two.”

Attacks on Gingrich awaited people after the movie premiere.  A group billed as "Iowans for Life" paid for fliers on cars that read, "The bottom line: Newt Gingrich is a pro-life fraud."

But as Huckabee pointed out during his short remarks inside the theater: “I think it is significant that all four of the candidates who are present tonight have endorsed life. And that ought to be very important.”