S.C. Early Signals: Gingrich in First (or Second); Paul in Second (or Third); Where's Newt's Freddie Contract?

Palmetto state voters are giving Newt Gingrich a new lease on life, according to this exit-poll tease that I would view with a grain of salt. 

That same poll is showing a Ron Paul surge to second place.

Gallup, on the other hand, has Mitt Romney at 31 percent, Gingrich at 23 percent, Ron Paul at 14 percent and Rick Santorum at 12 percent. (Smaller percentages divided among erstwhile candidates.) 

Gingrich has been demagoguing Romney's history as a private capital manager with a class-war attack so Marxist and idiotic that it drove Peter Suderman to write history's most cringe-inducing headline. Romney hits back by demanding to know how much money Gingrich sucked out of the taxpayers as court historian to the failed, Depression-causing GSE Freddie Mac. Romney tells Politico: 

I'd like to see what the report was that he provided to Freddie Mac. I'd like to see what he advised. He said he was an historian and just provided historical information, then he said he told them what they were doing was somehow not going to work. I'd like to see the report. He also said that he was one of the authors of the Reagan revolution economically and created these jobs. Now that we've looked at the Reagan diaries and seen he's mentioned only once and in a way where Reagan said he was wrong, I'd like to see what he actually told Freddie Mac. Don't ya think we ought to see it? This is a big issue. We've got Washington insider talking about Freddie Mac, let's see what his report was to Freddie Mac, what he said to them, what advice he gave them.

South Carolina has eight electoral votes. Counting every caucus/primary so far, we're still talking about states with a total of 19 out of 538 electoral votes. Yet in the pseudo-science of electoral probability, this has already been enough to cut the GOP candidate field by half.