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DES MOINES -- Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry and Rick Santorum will likely enjoy an uptick in momentum after a conservative group releases its ratings of six leading GOP presidential contenders. And Mitt Romney is in for another blow.

Strong America Now (SAN) is a Texas-based nonprofit that promotes presidential candidates who agree with its tenets for deficit eradication via a waste reduction process known as Lean Six Sigma -- and not by raising taxes. The group is mailing a brochure Wednesday to 70,000 Iowa households that are home to roughly 110,000 likely GOP caucus-goers. The brochure issues grades to six of the GOP contenders: Gingrich, Perry, Santorum, Romney, Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul.

In awarding a series of grades, the group assigned one based on whether the candidate signed SAN’s deficit-elimination pledge. Every candidate -- with the exception of Romney -- did, and received an A; the former Massachusetts governor got an F. (Jon Huntsman, who said earlier this year that he did not sign pledges, was not rated.) SAN also rated whether the candidates’ economic plans included deficit elimination measures and a strategy for waste reduction.

RealClearPolitics obtained an exclusive advance copy of the four-page voter guide, which offers good news for Gingrich, Perry and Santorum. All three received A’s in every category the organization graded, and A’s overall. Romney, however, scored a D overall.

On deficit elimination, each candidate received an A but Romney, who managed only a C. Romney also got a C for his plan’s inclusion of waste reduction, as did Bachmann and Paul. Perry, Gingrich and Santorum received A’s in the latter category.

The guide features comments from the five candidates who signed the pledge, all of which show them to be firm believers in either waste reduction or the specific pledge SAN put forth.

Here again, the exception was Romney. SAN’s mailer refers to a comment in one of his late-November ads in which he says, “We are not going to balance the budget just by pretending all we have to do is take out the waste.” The guide also points out that “Romney’s strategy eliminates only half the deficit.”

Andrea Saul, a Romney spokesperson, said Wednesday that the candidate shares Strong America Now’s belief that “the federal government is too big and that fiscal discipline is sorely needed in Washington.” She said his years in the private and public sectors demonstrate a commitment to that goal: “As governor, he closed a nearly $3 billion budget deficit without tax increases, balanced the budget each year, and left office with a $2 billion rainy-day fund in place. When he ran the Olympic Games, he turned a $379 million deficit into a $100 million profit.” 

She also asserted that  Romney is "the only candidate for president who has a detailed plan to dramatically cut federal spending and finally put us on the path to a balanced budget."

SAN boasts about 28,000 members in the Hawkeye State, and it indicated that nearly half of them were supporting Gingrich even before the mailer was to hit mailboxes. The mailer should only bolster support for the former House speaker, whose campaign admits that its Iowa organization has been lacking.

Nevertheless, with the caucuses less than three weeks away, Gingrich’s team wants to piggy-back on the organizational efforts of coalitions and groups like SAN.

Said SAN co-chair Dave Funk: "The media thinks that Newt Gingrich does not have a ground game in Iowa, but of all the candidates that have signed the Strong America Now pledge, Newt is the only one talking about us. It is clear that our supporters have noticed.”

Later this week, SAN will blast the mailer to at least 50,000 households in New Hampshire, where Gingrich has been closing the gap with Romney.