BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Mitt Romney is working to seal his status as the Republican presidential front-runner with a thus-far-elusive victory in the Deep South.

Closely fought primaries in Alabama and Louisiana offer the former Massachusetts governor a key opportunity in a region that has been slow to embrace him. Today’s primaries are also poised to render a possible final verdict on Newt Gingrich’s Southernfocused candidacy.

With polls showing an unexpectedly tight race in the conservative bellwether states, Romney made a campaign appearance Monday in Alabama — a clear indication he was eyeing a potential win there.

Romney campaigned with Southern comedian Jeff Foxworthy and poked fun at his own lack of hunting skills, saying he hoped to set out with an Alabama friend who “can actually show me which end of the rifle to point.”

Battling anew to be Romney’s main conservative challenger, Gingrich and Rick Santorum both spoke at an energy forum in Mississippi and took questions on religion in public life at a presidential forum in Birmingham, Ala. They took sharp aim at President Barack Obama, with Santorum labeling the president’s foreign policy “ pathetic” and Gingrich taunting Obama as “ President Algae” for an energy speech in which Obama spoke of research that would allow oil and gas to be developed from algae one day.

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