Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) remains "weeks" away from making a decision about a presidential run despite his recent trip to the East Coast.

He confirmed his timetable during an interview with Bloomberg TV's Al Hunt, which will air Friday night. Some observers said Daniels appeared edging closer toward running this week as he made a swing through New York, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., attending public events and meeting with reporters. 

During his speech in the capital, Daniels insisted it wouldn't be too late for him to enter the 2012 primary.

"It's not already far too late — for whatever reason, it's not," he said during a speech at the American Enterprise Institute. "I consider that, from the standpoint of the public, a blessing."

In his interview with Hunt, Daniels expanded on his recent statement that he was "probably not" ready to debate President Obama on foreign policy.

"Indiana doesn't have a foreign policy," the governor said.

Republican presidential candidates seized on Friday's employment report to revive criticism of President Obama and his economic policies.

After a week in which many Republicans praised the commando raid, ordered by Obama, that killed Osama bin Laden, the GOP field returned to familiar turf: voicing strident criticism of the administration on the economy.

"Today's disheartening unemployment increase is another reminder of the failure of President Obama's economic policies," former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) said in a statement. "We are in the third year of unemployment above 8 percent. This figure is not just a statistic — 20 million Americans are out of work, underemployed or have stopped looking for work."

Friday's jobs numbers offered a blessing and curse, politically, for both the president and his would-be Republican challengers. The economy added 244,000 jobs last month, but the unemployment rate ticked upward from 8.8 percent to 9 percent — a figure the Republicans will use as a cudgel against Democrats.

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) has not commented directly on the jobs report, but indicated that individual statistics would not affect his overall argument against Obama's handling of the economy.

"The economy, if it's improving at all, is only doing so very slowly and not by very big margins," he said on ABC's "Good Morning America."

Pawlenty accused Obama of breaking a litany of campaign promises, such as fixing the federal budget deficit.

"He made all these promises and he broke most of them," he said.

Obama has spent the better part of this week riding high on the success of last weekend's raid on bin Laden's compound in Pakistan; a variety of public opinion polls since last Sunday's operation showed a bump in the president's approval rating, driven by increased support for his handling of the war in Afghanistan and the war on terror.

But those same polls suggested that many voters remain frustrated with the administration's economic stewardship.

Thirty-eight percent of those surveyed in a CNN/Opinion Research poll released Friday said unemployment is the top issue facing the country. Twenty-eight percent named the budget deficit as the top issue, and 21 percent said the rising price of gas is most important. All three are pocketbook issues, and Obama's reelection could ultimately hinge more on voters' satisfaction with the economy than this past weekend's military victory.

Likely GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty still refuses to go after Mitt Romney, the presumed front-runner for the party's 2012 presidential nomination.

Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota, has cautiously approached his public statements about Romney, despite having numerous opportunities to criticize the former Massachusetts governor.

At Thursday night's Republican debate in South Carolina, and during subsequent media appearances Friday morning, Pawlenty refused to take questioners' bait and lay into Romney, opting instead to stay positive when it comes to his campaign rival.

While Pawlenty has stressed the need for Republican contenders to go after President Obama, he has refused to slam Romney, who decided not to attend the debate because "it’s still early" and "the field is too unsettled."

“You know, it’s May, and I can understand if people didn’t want to start in December or January. I mean, in the past they’ve said, ‘That’s too early,’ ” Pawlenty told Radio Iowa this week. “Well, you know, it’s time.”

But given an opportunity to criticize the healthcare law Romney signed as governor of Massachusetts, Pawlenty passed, even though other Republicans have said it is too similar to Obama's healthcare overhaul.

"Gov. Romney's not here to defend himself, so I'm not going to pick on him," Pawlenty said.

Pawlenty's tempered approach toward Romney does not mean he's ruled out sharpening his jabs at him as the campaign season intensifies. 

While Pawlenty has largely stayed positive toward Romney, he has not been afraid to throw elbows at others. He appeared to frustrate House Republicans when he came out against a deal to prevent a government shutdown.

And the large field of potential Republican includes several contenders who have already ripped Romney's healthcare law, leaving Pawlenty with the luxury of refraining from attacks for now.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), a potential 2012 candidate who ran against Romney in the 2008 GOP presidential primary, in his new book described the Bay State law as "socialized medicine," an insult usually reserved for Obama's law.

Pawlenty expanded on his decision not to attack Romney Friday morning, saying that Republicans need to be united in this stage of the campaign to effectively make their case against the president.

“I am going to try and follow Ronald Reagan’s 11th commandment, and that’s don’t criticize other Republicans. At the end of this we are going to have to be a team if we are going to get the country back on the right track," he explained.

"He’s a friend," Pawlenty said of Romney. "Our focus here is President Obama, not Mitt Romney, not some other Republican candidate."

—Michael O'Brien and Shane D'Aprile contributed.

Nevada Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki (R) has decided against a run in the special election to fill the seat of Rep. Dean Heller (R-Nev.). 

In a statement Thursday, Krolicki said "now is not the time" to wage a bid for the House, calling the demands of an immediate campaign "unconscionable distractions during the final weeks of the Legislature."

Krolicki serves as president of the Nevada state Senate.  

In a statement, Krolicki also voiced support for the Nevada GOP lawsuit challenging Secretary of State Ross Miller's (D) decision to hold an open election.

"I firmly believe that political parties have a role in elections, and I fully support the Nevada Republican Party’s lawsuit to protect their ability to nominate the candidate of their choice," Krolicki said. "Voters rely on parties to vet candidates and put their best choice forward. Robbing voters of that knowledge, and the political parties of that process, seems shortsighted."

The decision by Miller has been widely criticized as partisan by state and national Republicans, and the free-for-all special election provides an opening to Republican Sharron Angle, who likely would have been shunned by party insiders in a closed process.

Angle, retired Navy Cmdr. Kirk Lippold and state Sen. Greg Brower are all in the race on the Republican side.

Heller was appointed by Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) to fill the seat of Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), who resigned effective May 3. Heller is set to be sworn in May 9.

In the eyes of the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) new chairwoman, the winner of last night's Republican debate was "the person who was a business leader."

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) dabbled in Republican presidential politics on Friday, seeming to allude to Herman Cain, the longshot Republican presidential candidate who was formerly CEO of Godfather's Pizza, as the winner of last night's first primary debate of the 2012 race.

"I thought it was interesting that the Fox focus group's reaction was that the person who was a business leader was the one that won the debate," Wasserman Schultz said on Fox News.

Cain joined four current and formerly elected Republican officials — former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.), Rep. Ron Paul (Texas) and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson — for the first debate of the cycle, held in South Carolina.

Wasserman Schultz made her assessment in her first national television appearance since becoming leader of the DNC. And she made that appearance on Fox News, the network that hosted last night's debate and is has been an object of derision by Democrats.

Wasserman Schultz heaped praise on Fox and the moderators of last night's debate for asking "really tough questions, fair questions."

"Unfortunately, the responses were really wanting when it comes to the needs of the American people," she said of the candidates' responses.

The fundraising campaign was launched to bolster the Texas congressman before he participated in Thursday's first GOP presidential debate.

Several lawmakers say Jon Huntsman's time as ambassador to China could even be an asset in the Republican primary field.

Olympia Snowe, a longtime centrist, has taken surprisingly conservative positions in the Senate this year.

Foreign policy critiques were on display at a South Carolina debate that was missing most of the 2012 front-runners.