Super Tuesday looms out of chaos A few miles from the elegant mansions and giant oaks dripping with Spanish moss that have made Savannah a symbol of America's deep south, James Brown, 67, arrives early to hear Newt Gingrich speak. Mr Brown, a pensioner, is devoted to the former Speaker of the House of Representatives who is trying to revive his campaign for the Republican 2012 nomination with a victory on Tuesday in his home state of Georgia. Georgia is one of 10 ballots in the Republican race on so-called Super Tuesday , a day that will set the tone for the remainder of what has been a chaotic contest by historical standards. Mr Gingrich is one of numerous Republicans who have vaulted into the lead over the past two months before dropping back again, leaving the steady longtime frontrunner, Mitt Romney, as the favourite to take the nomination. Mr Brown, however, believes Mr Gingrich is the smartest of the candidates and has the "guts" to "drag [Barack Obama and the Democrats] over the coals backwards and forward." Mr Romney, on the other hand "flows with the tide," he says, reflecting the kind of discontent with the former Massachusetts governor that can be found across vast parts of the Republican heartland in the conservative south. They're putting him in as the money man. What good is money? You've got to make a statement, you've got to tell the truth," says Mr Brown. Mr Romney has a clear lead in at least four states up for grabs on Tuesday - Vermont, Massachusetts, Virginia and Idaho - and is closing in on Rick Santorum in Ohio, the contest with the most symbolic weight. The latest poll average in Georgia shows Mr Gingrich winning Georgia with 34 per cent, with Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, coming second, with 25 per cent, and Mr Romney third, with 21 per cent. In Tennessee and Oklahoma, Mr Romney is also trailing well behind, this time with Mr Santorum, who has captured the hearts of many Christian conservative voters across the "Bible Belt," in the lead. All the candidates have visited Tennessee and their campaigns and their surrogate organisations, the super-political action committees, have begun rolling out attack advertisements in the state. There is a big food fight. Politics is not beanbag, as John McCain used to say," said Bob Davis, a former chairman of the state Republican party. "But if Santorum can lock into the evangelical vote in east Tennessee, where there is a chunk of them, he has a real shot of winning here," he added. Mr Romney's many gaffes playing up his wealth have taken a toll in southern states such as Georgia and Tennessee, where there is greater distrust of people depicted as "elites" from the north-east or the West Coast. "I don't like Romney," says Kelly Gallman, a teacher and Savannah native who lives outside Atlanta but is in town for a convention. "He wants to fire people and make $10,000 bets," she says. Tom Slago, a decorated veteran of the Iraq war, sums it up: "I don't think he is solid on the issues that I am worried about." Instead, Mr Slago says Mr Gingrich "is the only true conservative who's going to do what it takes to fix Washington." For the former House Speaker who stormed to victory in the South Carolina primary in January, Georgia is a make-or-break moment. An unexpected defeat in Georgia would be likely to sink his candidacy, while even a win may not be enough to persuade donors and voters that he can truly compete for the nomination. But Mr Gingrich was confident on his home turf, after taking to the podium with his third wife, Callista, by his side. He roused his audience with attacks on Mr Obama's energy policy amid concern at petrol prices. The left, he says, "are desperate to try to get us into tiny vehicles. But what the left doesn't realise is you cannot put a gun rack on a Prius. With a large military presence in southern Georgia, Mr Gingrich also attacked Mr Obama for apologising to Afghanistan for the recent burning of the Koran by US soldiers. "He apologises to Islam and wages war on the Catholic Church," says Mr Gingrich, referring to the recent political storm over mandating that the health plans of religious employers offer contraception. Mr Santorum, too, has been running hard on religion, but his policy offering manufacturers a zero corporate tax rate could lift him in Tennessee and Ohio. "He has a good manufacturing plan," says Chip Saltsman, a former campaign manager for Mike Huckabee, a 2008 republican hopeful who is based in Tennessee. And we have a lot of manufacturing here.