Gingrich makes states' rights appeal to Deep South voters With his presidential aspirations riding on support in the Deep South, Newt Gingrich opened his final one-week dash to the crucial Georgia primary on Wednesday with a states' rights plea laden with racial symbolism. His setting was the chamber of Georgia's House of Representatives. From the rostrum, Gingrich told lawmakers that he would fight for a "very strong" states' rights platform at the Republican Party's national convention this summer in Tampa, Fla. "I want to return power back home to an extraordinary degree," said Gingrich, a former U.S. House speaker who represented Georgia in Congress for 20 years. For generations, politicians in the South used states' rights to justify racial segregation and, in the 19th century, slavery. Gingrich, whose labeling of President Obama as a "food stamp president" was the centerpiece of his TV advertising last month in the South Carolina primary, steered clear of any overt discussion of race on Monday. But in public remarks, he often follows his "food stamp" line about the nation's first black president by lamenting poverty and despair among African Americans. In his speech on the Georgia House floor, Gingrich gave one example of why the U.S. government needs to shift power to the states: A bureaucratic tangle of 185 offices dealing with federal assistance to low-income Americans. "I'd like to block-grant that into one office and send you the money and say you need to figure out how you're going to cope with helping people in Georgia who need help," Gingrich told the lawmakers, who reacted with a round of applause. Gingrich has named Texas Gov. Rick Perry to lead a "Tenth Amendment project" to review states' rights issues in anticipation of drafting the party platform. "Gov. Perry will be looking to you for lots of ideas that we can take both to the national convention and write into law," Gingrich said. Gingrich's remarks came a day after he lost the Arizona and Michigan primaries to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. They were the latest in a two-month string of Gingrich defeats, broken only by his Jan. 21 victory in South Carolina. Gingrich is hoping to revive his candidacy by winning Georgia, the largest delegate prize of the Super Tuesday contests that are now just six days away, along with Oklahoma and Tennessee, then Alabama and Mississippi a week later.