Texas Governor Rick Perry will end his limping bid for the presidency with an announcement scheduled this morning, just two days before voters go to the polls in the crucial South Carolina Republican primary. The timing is aimed to boost support for Newt Gingrich, whose popularity among voters has been climbing again after he unleashed a barrage of attacks on Romney over the last two weeks, painting him as an arch job-killing vulture capitalist, and after Romney declined to appear last night at an anti-abortion forum in Greenville.