Newt Gingrich on the ‘Today’ show outlines his road to the Republican nomination

With Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum campaigning for last-minute votes in Michigan, Newt Gingrich turned to Tennessee Tuesday morning, outlining his road to the Republican nomination -- or his road to stay in the race -- for Matt Lauer on the "Today" show.

"I think Romney made the decision he had to spend $20 million against me in Florida, ran a negative campaign," Gingrich said. "I carried a third of the counties in North Florida. He carried South Florida. ... We went to Nevada and I came in second. I got twice the votes John McCain got four years ago. At that point Rick Santorum did something intelligent. He skipped South Carolina, Florida and Nevada, put his resources into three states nobody competed in, and the news media anointed him the alternative."

But, as Gingrich explained to Lauer, "You have to live through a couple of weeks." His strategy: keep hanging in there and collecting delegates along the way.

That's part of his strategy for Super Tuesday.

"I think for sure we'll carry Georgia, Tennessee and Oklahoma," he said. He noted that Fred Thompson campaigned with him in Tennessee, Herman Cain and his daughter teamed up there too and J.C. Watts is stumping for him in Oklahoma. And he likes his chances of picking up a good number of delegates in Idaho and maybe Ohio and North Dakota too. " I think we'll come out of Super Tuesday with a number of delegates," said Gingrich. "Then to Alabama and Mississippi where we'll win both of those. Governor Perry thinks it will be 155-0 in Texas delegates for me. We'll continue to amass delegates."

After Lauer called Gingrich's view of the race "optimistic," the former House Speaker snapped back. "Look, Matt, this is the fourth time the same guys have said the same thing," Gingrich said. "They said in June I was gone. By December I was leading the national polls by as much as 21 points. Then we had $5 million of negative ads in Iowa. People said I was gone. We won South Carolina, set a record. Then Romney dumped $21 million in negative ads. We are still number two in Florida and Nevada. I'm used to this non-advice from people for Mitt Romney."

Lauer also asked Gingrich, a former college professor, to address Santorum's assertion that President Obama is a "snob" for wanting everyone in America to go to college.

"I think every American ought to get trained -- doesn't matter what your degrees are," Gingrich said. "It matters if you're employable."

Read more coverage of the 2012 Michigan and Arizona primaries at Yahoo! News.

More popular Yahoo! News stories:

• Fighting drugs and border violence in America's most dangerous national park: What about the ranger's M14 rifle, Yogi?
• At a Santorum business breakfast, it's social issues—not the economy—that fire up the crowd
• Obama rebukes Santorum on education 'snob' charge, points to policy on community colleges, worker training

Want more of our best political stories? Visit The Ticket or connect with us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, or add us on Tumblr. Handy with a camera? Join our Election 2012 Flickr group to submit your photos of the campaign in action.