Presidential races

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said a number of Florida Republicans, including West, would do well as vice president.

The presidential field has weakened as Republicans seem to conclude they’d stand a better chance of winning in four years.

The GOP governor asserted that Mississippi has advanced quite a bit over the last half-century or so.

"Part of the process is to be able to gauge reaction to the message," Huckabee said of his book tour.

The former Arkansas governor said Monday that President Obama’s detractors might be overestimating his weakness in 2012.

Conservative GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann said her decision whether to run for president will depend on an "inner assurance."

Conservative pundit Ann Coulter warned activists Saturday that if the party nominates former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in 2012, President Obama will win reelection.

Asked in a Q&A session after a bombastic speech at CPAC what she thought of the 2012 field of hopefuls, Coulter initially hesitated, but went on to essentially deliver an endorsement of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

"If you don't run Chris Christie, Romney will be the nominee and we'll lose," said Coulter, eliciting cheers from the crowd.

"By the way," she added, "I warned you about McCain."

Coulter didn't mention any other rumored 2012 contender by name, but said most of them are "good in the positions they're in now."

She also waved off a small group of attendees who booed at a mention of Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.).

"It's Massachusetts, c'mon," said Coulter. "You're lucky it's not Joseph Stalin."

Asked about her support of the inclusion of a gay conservative group at this year's conference, Coulter defended GOProud and argued that excluding the group would help Democrats "co-opt gays."

The organization's inclusion in the event led several leading conservative groups, and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), to boycott the event.

"You have all of culture telling gays they should be liberal," Coulter said, whose support of the group was mostly met with applause.

She even had a slogan suggestion: "Gays without the sodomy."

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton is still weighing a presidential bid next year, saying of a 2012 run Saturday, "I think it's doable, politically."

Bolton was well received by conservative activists for his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, in which he laid into President Obama's posture on the crisis in Egypt and his foreign policy approach more generally.

Weighing heavily in his decision making process on a 2012 run, said Bolton, is what he sees as the need for "returning national security to the center of our priorities."

Aside from Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), Bolton was one of the only CPAC speakers to focus heavily on Egypt in his remarks.

"I don't feel under time pressure," Bolton said when asked about his 2012 thinking. "I think the field is wide open and I think the possibility of an entry even late this year is still possible."

President Obama leads several top would-be Republican challengers by an even larger margin than last year, a new poll found Friday.

Obama would beat former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in head-to-head match-ups if the 2012 election were held today, a new Fox News poll found.

Obama also leads all four of those candidates by healthier margins than he had in the same tests of those match-ups in late September of last year, the poll found.

Forty-eight percent of registered voters would choose Obama, versus 41 percent who would vote for Romney, the poll found. (Obama led 41-40 percent last fall.)

In a race against Huckabee, Obama would win 49-41 percent, an expanded margin from the 43-40 percent lead the president held in September.

Obama clears the 50 percent marker against both Gingrich and Palin. He would beat Palin by more than 20 points — 56 to 35 percent — and best Gingrich 55-35 percent. The president led Palin 48-35 percent last September, and was ahead of the former Speaker with 53 percent to Gingrich's 29 percent last fall.

As a bonus, the Fox poll also tests how Obama would fare against former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), who said he's not running, in 2012. Fifty-four percent of registered voters would choose Obama in that match-up, compared to 34 percent who would elect Bush. 

Many of the candidates tested against Obama are doing their best to take the president down a peg during speeches at this weekend's Conservative Political Action Conference.

The poll, conducted from Feb. 7-9 by Democratic pollster Anderson Robbins Research and GOP pollster Shaw & Company Research, has a 3 percent margin of error.

"The closest I've come to being on a reality TV show is C-SPAN's live coverage of the Senate floor," he said.