HOUMA, La.-  Mitt Romney's Etch-a-Sketch problem came up against a toy alligator in the hands of Newt Gingrich at a campaign stop here Thursday.

The Republican presidential candidate was horsing around with a toy alligator head when he was handed an Etch-a-Sketch. Gingrich  put it in the alligator's mouth and moved the mouth up and down in a chomping motion. 

"There's Louisiana treatment of an Etch-a-Sketch!" Gingrich said to the cameras amid plenty of references to Romney's communication director's gaffe - by both attendees and Gingrich himself. Romney's top aide, in answering a question about the fall campaign,  said, "Everything changes. It's almost like an Etch A Sketch. You kind of shake it up and restart all over again," raising questions about Romney's trustworthiness to carry the conservative banner. Gingrich thanked  the aide  for "telling the truth." 

 "You can't have a child's toy for president," Gingrich told the crowd.

Children's toys aside, Gingrich also took the opportunity to hit Romney on gas prices. He said while calling into a radio show he was asked why Gov. Romney kept the gas tax high in Massachusetts.  Gingrich quoted the former Massachuestts governor as saying ,"people ought to get used to high prices of gasoline." Gingrich told the crowd the information "just came out this morning." 

The blogosphere buzzed Thursday with the news, reported by the Quincy Patriot Ledger, that  in 2006  Romney said high gasoline prices "are probably here to stay." Gingrich has been running his campaign on a $2.50 gas price promise. Gingrich also hit simultaneously at President Obama for not fully authorizing the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which would move oil from  Canada to Texas, and Rick Santorum for voting to fund the  Bridge to Nowhere, which would have connected minuscule Gravina Island to Ketchikan, Alaska, when he was in Congress.

"Today, the president announced he was going to open up half of the Keystone Pipeline. That's right - this is the pipeline to nowhere," Gingrich said. Obama is going to match Santorum's Bridge to Nowhere with a Pipeline to Nowhere.

Gingrich continues to campaign in Louisiana through Friday  but will not hold an election night party, according to his spokesman.