As the Republican presidential primary field continues to narrow and two candidates begin to emerge for a one-on-one battle, executing a well-conceived strategy will be essential to grabbing the 1,191 delegates needed to gain the party's nomination.

Keeping a cool head and expanding his appeal among social conservatives will help John McCain as he campaigns ahead of Super Tuesday, Feb. 5, which will be awarding a large portion of those delegates.

For Mitt Romney, capturing the the Ronald Reagan mantle and carefully selecting media markets are essential tools to surpass McCain, Florida's Tuesday victor who is now leading the delegate count.

McCain will visit California, Georgia, Alabama, Arizona, Missourri, Illinois, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, among other states participating in the 21 GOP contests being held on Super Tuesday. McCain, whose campaign is in debt but rebounding since his January victories, will also go to Romney's backyard for a fundraiser in Boston a couple days before the big election.

McCain has already benefited from and will continue to get some high-level endorsements from GOP luminaries as well as newspaper editorial boards, filling out his position as the "establishment" candidate.

McCain aides say Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who endorsed Giuliani, will now back McCain. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has not made a decision about an endorsement yet, but both McCain and Romney insiders told FOX News they expect that McCain will get it. Rudy Giuliani's anticipated endorsement could also help among moderates and northeastern states. McCain holds a wide lead in polls in Giuliani's home state of New York.

McCain said Wednesday that he is working hard to persuade conservatives, independents and other voters of all stripes that he will represent them.

Sen. Charles Grassley -- an astute Republican politician from Iowa, says he could "enthusiastically support" McCain if he were chosen the party nominee. But he suggested McCain find some economic conservatives to back him up.

"I believe, not on everything, but on most everything, he's closer to social conservatives than economic conservatives. I think he can satisfy social conservatives by what he says about who he's going to put on the Supreme Court," Grassley said Wednesday.

"So then his weakness is economic conservatives. So, I think he needs a vice president that will balance that part of the party. He needs somebody to reinforce what he's said -- that the 2001 and 2003 tax bills he voted against is good policy and he's going to keep (them) in place when he's president. He needs to work hard to convince people he's doing that. And that's his major weakness against Romney," Grassley said.

One challenge for McCain is to conquer once and for all his temper. Over the years, his shoot-from-the-lip style and quick-to-anger personality has gotten him in trouble.

So far this election season, the Arizona senator has demonstrated a previously unseen discipline and kept a lid on his outbursts.

McCain insiders, Republican Party officials and even Romney staff credit that new calm to senior adviser Steve Schmidt. Schmidt ran Schwarzenegger's gubernatorial campaign and before that was a top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney. He also was a key aide in the 2004 Bush-Cheney re-election campaign.

"Schmidt is the first guy in 25 years who's been able to break the maverick and keep McCain from blowing up at people," one top Romney aide said.

Others who are key operatives in McCain's world are Mark Salter. McCain's alter ego, Senate chief of staff, longest-serving aide and book co-author, Salter is still the senator's closest confidant and adviser, Charlie Black, a top operative and veteran of GOP presidential campaigns for decades, is also in McCain's inner circle.

But McCain aides concede that the elite team of very few staffers and advisers that has been the McCain campaign since an implosion that led to firings last fall needs to be beefed up. The small group lacks infrastructure and facilities for a long-term national campaign, a situation that could ultimately hurt the Arizona senator.

As for Romney, his strategy is two-fold and time sensitive -- hitting "simple" states and rallying supporters who want anyone but McCain.

Wednesday: Mitt Romney, center, jokes with long time

friend Bob White, right, media adviser Stuart Stevens,

second from right, and communications director Matt

Rhodes, aboard a charter plane headed to California for a

Republican presidential primary debate. (AP Photo)

That includes drawing together as many conservative opinion-makers and talk radio hosts into a coalition and hitting on the message early and often that Romney is the conservative choice in the presidential election. Romney plans to drive home that message in Wednesday night's debate at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.

"Going into Super Tuesday, what those conservative voters do, particularly in some of those southern states, will be critical," Romney senior adviser Liz Cheney told FOX News.

Romney will continue to press his economic credentials as well, but he wants to make sure conservatives "recognize that at this point in the race, when it really is a race between Senator McCain and Governor Romney, a vote for Governor Huckabee is really a vote for Senator McCain, who doesn't share the values that most of those conservatives hold dear," Cheney said.

Romney must also blanket the airwaves and show up in Feb. 5 states that are in play and are "simple," meaning states that have one major media market, like Colorado, for example. Romney will likely appear in Denver to attract news media attention rather than try to dominate the airwaves with television ads.

The campaign is looking to win in New Mexico, North Dakota, Idaho and Oklahoma as well as other states that are holding caucuses, where votes are easier and cheaper to organize. In a primary state like New York, where McCain is leading, it would be nearly impossible to try to swing the race through media buys in multiple markets, and Romney doesn't have the time to make an impression all over the state.

Campaign officials say Romney is also competitive in Illinois and Missouri, and if they can convince conservatives not to vote for Huckabee, they have a chance to win Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia.

What Romney is hoping to avoid is the clock, which appears to be ticking faster than the campaign would like. That problem is compounded by a possible Schwarzenegger endorsement for McCain, which will swamp media coverage similar to the way Florida Gov. Charlie Crist's endorsement sucked other coverage out of the news.

As for Huckabee, he insists he's not about to drop out, and has seen many voters increase their interest in him as he has campaigned around the nation.

"We finished in the top two or three in virtually every one of these contests, we won Iowa, that's why we're second in delegate count and ultimately it's going to be who has the delegates, not who has the front page of today's newspaper," the former Arkansas governor told FOX News.

Huckabee said the math works out for him in Georgia, Tennessee and other "delegate-rich states," but he still has to battle media misperceptions that he is not competing.

"We're going to make it very clear that we're in all these other states, we're going to be in about 17 cities in three days and seven states," he said.

FOX News' Carl Cameron and Sharon Kehnemui Liss contributed to this report.