WASHINGTON (AP) — Torn between reality and their political dreams, leading conservatives are defending Mitt Romney against attacks on his work in the private sector even as they search for a more palatable candidate amid a growing sense that his nomination may be certain.

Romney is marching steadily through South Carolina, a state still uncertain about him, and picking up a prominent conservative’s endorsement while sending a message to his party: It’s time to stop the bickering.

Not just yet, some conservative leaders say.

“Honestly, it looks like Governor Romney’s nomination is inevitable,” said the Rev. Robert Jeffress, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas. “Evangelicals, come November, might have to hold their noses and vote for the lesser of two evils. But it’s not November yet.”

Just over a week before South Carolina’s first-in-the-South vote, there are signs that conservatives are struggling with their goal of finding what some would call “the anti-Romney.” They appear no more organized in their search for a credible challenger than they were before former Sen. Rick Santorum raised their hopes with his second-place finish in Iowa.

More than 100 conservative leaders, many of them evangelical in their faiths, were set to converge this weekend at the Texas ranch of former state appeals court Judge Paul Pressler to consider their options, if any. Surrogates for each campaign were expected to make presentations and take questions.

In spite of their reluctance to embrace Romney as the GOP nominee, some conservatives have been drawn into defending him against charges of “vulture” capitalism from rivals Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry. Both are potential recipients of conservative backing in the effort to oppose Romney.

Trying to tap into populist sentiment, Gingrich and Perry accused Romney of being a fat-cat venture capitalist during his days running the private equity firm Bain Capital, saying he laid off workers as he restructured companies and filled his own pockets.

That strategy boomeranged. A long list of conservative leaders who have not endorsed Romney are nonetheless sticking up for his success — former Bush adviser Karl Rove, former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Club for Growth, an array of conservative talk show hosts and even Santorum. Conservative leaders say the attack amounts to an assault on capitalism and the free market system at the heart of their movement.

“It’s a sad day in South Carolina and across this country if Republicans are talking against the free market, let me tell you that,” said South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a tea party star who has endorsed Romney.

“It’s just been foolish,” said Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which does not endorse presidential candidates. “They’re not doing anything other than setting up the ad base for their (Democratic) opponents.”

On that point, the anti-Romney conservatives agree.

“I’ve not talked to many conservatives that support these attacks on Romney,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. Evangelicals, he pointed out, support a free market with moral restraints and generally wouldn’t object to Romney’s success at Bain. “I don’t think they see that as the real issue. It sounds more like something the Democrats might bring up.”

It’s a stark turnabout from last week, when speculation crackled through conservative ranks over whether Santorum could capture support from the large chunk of Republicans who aren’t behind Romney.

Post-Iowa, things went sour for this group. Romney’s second-in-a-row win in New Hampshire on Tuesday solidified his standing atop the GOP field. He was followed in that race not by Santorum but Texas Rep. Ron Paul and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman. Gingrich and Perry also drew only tepid support in the opening contests.

Now, everyone’s looking to South Carolina’s Jan. 21 primary as potentially the last stand for the anti-Romney crowd.

“He is not anything near conservative enough,” said Rock Hill, S.C., resident Carlene Madison, 54, shaking her head and making an unpleasant face.

Polling shows Romney gaining ground in South Carolina. He won Iowa with only 25 percent of the vote and New Hampshire with a more robust 38 percent. A poll conducted Jan. 4-5 by CNN/Time/ORC International showed Romney with the support of 37 percent of the state’s likely Republican primary voters, up from 20 percent a month earlier.

He also won the endorsement this week of former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, a favorite of conservatives for his consistent criticism of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy.

Romney has a difficult history with South Carolina’s Republican voters, who are some of the nation’s most conservative. In exit polling from the state’s 2008 Republican presidential contest, 60 percent of primary voters said they were born-again Christians. Romney, whose Mormon faith is not considered a Christian denomination by some, carried just 11 percent of their votes, fewer than his 15 percent tally overall. Mormons consider themselves Christians.

Conservatives looking to back someone else have a heavy workload in a compressed period of time. Romney’s closest rival, Santorum, is 18 points behind in South Carolina, followed by Gingrich, Paul, Perry and Huntsman, according to the CNN/Time/ORC International poll. Six percent are undecided, the survey found.

Jeffress, the Baptist minister, who once called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a cult and doesn’t consider it a Christian faith, said he is skipping the Texas conference of conservatives but might eventually recommend voting for the former Massachusetts governor.

His rationale: “It’s probably better to embrace a non-Christian like Romney, who embraces biblical values like the sanctity of life and the sanctity of marriage, rather than a professing Christian like President Obama, who embraces unbiblical positions.”

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Associated Press writers Shannon McCaffrey and Rachel Zoll in South Carolina contributed to this report.

ATLANTA (AP) — Those cute mail-order chicks that wind up in children’s Easter baskets and backyard farms have been linked to more than 300 cases of salmonella in the U.S. — mostly in youngsters — since 2004.

An estimated 50 million live poultry are sold through the mail each year in the United States in a business that has been booming because of the growing popularity of backyard chicken farming as a hobby among people who like the idea of raising their own food.

But health officials are warning of a bacterial threat on the birds’ feet, feathers, beaks and eggs.

NEW YORK (AP) — Leo Dillon, the groundbreaking illustrator who collaborated with his wife, Diane, on dozens of books for kids and adults and became the first African-American to win the Caldecott Medal for children’s books, has died. He was 79.

Dillon died May 26 at Long Island College Hospital from complications after lung surgery, publisher Scholastic Inc. announced Wednesday. Harlan Ellison, a close friend, wrote on his website that “Half my soul for 50 years went with him.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is moving to impose stiff new tariffs on wind-energy towers made in China, the latest strike in an escalating trade war over clean energy.

The Commerce Department said in a preliminary decision Wednesday that Chinese companies have received government subsidies on steel wind towers ranging from about 14 percent to 26 percent. The decision could result in tariffs of those amounts being imposed on about a dozen Chinese companies that export large numbers of steel wind towers to the United States.

It follows a Commerce Department decision this month to impose tariffs averaging about 31 percent on solar cells and panels imported from China.

China has called the U.S. action on solar equipment unfair and warned that higher tariffs could hurt efforts to promote clean energy.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration added new sanctions on a Syrian bank Wednesday as a top White House official said the U.S. wants to economically throttle the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad and cut off salaries of pro-government thugs blamed for the grisly massacre in Houla.

The Treasury Department said the Syria International Islamic Bank has been acting as a front for other Syrian financial institutions seeking to circumvent sanctions. The new penalties will prohibit the SIIB from engaging in financial transactions in the U.S. and will freeze any assets under U.S. jurisdiction.

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says the price tag on proposed fixes to Montana’s Fort Peck Dam following major flooding along the Missouri River could top $225 million.

But with money short, Corps officials said Wednesday they will be able to afford only $46 million in interim fixes for now.

Record snowfalls and massive spring rains in Wyoming and Montana last year prompted the release of unprecedented volumes of water from the Corps’ six Missouri River dams.

The torrent damaged Fort Peck’s spillway gates and eroded areas downstream from the dam, located at the top of the Missouri River system.

Fort Peck Project Manager John Daggett says the planned repairs will ensure the spillway can be used to safely release water during future flooding.