GOP White House hopeful Mitt Romney is stepping up his attacks on rival Newt Gingrich on Wednesday, hitting him for lack of leadership while Speaker of the House in advance of the Saturday South Carolina primary. While polls suggest Romney could win in South Carolina with multiple names on the ballot--including Republicans who have dropped out--a plurality win with Gingrich or any rival close behind is not the robust victory the Romney team wants. The Romney team wants to show Republicans are really coming around for Romney--not just that no strong anti-Romney has emerged and rivals are splitting the anti-Romney vote.

The Romney team is pressing two anti-Gingrich themes: "unreliable leader" and "undiscliplined." They are using two surrogates --former Rep. Susan Molinari and former Sen. Jim Talent to help make the charge. Molinari was in the House while Gingrich was speaker and her husband, former Rep. Bill Paxon was part of a rump rebellion against him.

Talent, who served with Gingrich while in the House, said in a conference call Wednesday morning that while Gingrich is running as a "reliable conservative leader," he is "not reliable" and can be "destructive" to Republicans. Talent cited as an example Gingrich's disagreement with a budget offered by Rep. Paul Ryan last year, calling it "radical right wing social engineering." Gingrich also teamed with Democrat Nancy Pelosi to back climate change proposals, Talent said.

And to top it off, said Talent, is Gingrich's current attack on Romney for his tenure as head of Bain Capital, mirroring the criticisms of the Democrats.

Molinari, who served in leadership with Gingrich at the time, said one day "Gingrich was an ubber conservative" and then another day punched at the free market. Molinari highlighted that Gingrich was forced to resign as leader.

"We do not want Speaker Gingrich" to help re-elect Obama, she said. The nation needs the "steady conservative hand" of Romney.

I asked if either Talent or Molinari wanted Gingrich to drop out now and Molinari said,"no," and added, "I'd let the Romney people speak to that" and added, "We feel the need to speak out and say" what we know about him.

Molinari said when "Newt is in the room, Newt becomes the focus" when the issue has to be "President Obama's performance in office." Gingrich does not have the "temperment and personality" to beat Obama and to be "commander-in-chief."

To underscore the conference call, the Romney team produced a new web ad calling Gingrich an "undisciplined leader" and Molinari says in it, "I served with Newt Gingrich in Congress. Newt Gingrich had a leadership style that can only be described as leadership by chaos. ....The decisions that he would make today would be different decisions tomorrow. ....And a lot of the problems came from sort of the discipline that he lacked in order to get the job done. ....The last time Newt Gingrich was the head of the Republican Party as Speaker, he became so controversial, he helped reelect a Democratic president. ...I worry about the Republican Party's chances to defeat President Obama if Newt Gingrich is the nominee."

Former House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, who followed Gingrich, is backing Romney.