In South Dakota Sen. John Thune's sprawling debut at this year's Conservative Political Action Committee conference, the potential 2012 Republican presidential contender got specific with some of his complaints about President Obama.

In contrast to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who also sought to present himself as the most credible alternative to Obama for the GOP, Thune pounded the Obama administration on a slew of specific issues, whereas Romney presented a more sweeping difference in vision.

Thune blasted "ObamaCare" and the Federal Communications Commission under Obama for "trying to regulate the Internet." He also criticized the EPA's maneuvers following the failure of cap-and-trade in Congress as well as the National Labor Relations Board for trying to act in light of the failure to pass card check.

Thune urged the adoption of "a two-year budget that spends money in the odd-numbered years and saves money in the even-numbered years, when folks go home to run for re-election," and he ticked off several specific issues Congress is working on, whereas Romney offered more holistic themes.

The contrast is an important one as Thune struggles with whether or not to make a presidential run now.

Neither Romney nor Thune took questions after their speech, but their entrances to the conference couldn't have been more different.

Thune entered through the front lobby, shaking hands and meeting new faces. There was less scrutiny and less attention on his appearance. Romney was ushered in for his speech and kept the press waiting while he escaped to a post-speech reception.

Romney is well-known to the GOP electorate after his first bid for the presidency in the last cycle; Thune, who has been ascending Republican Senate leadership, is a new face.

What's more, while Romney avoided talking about the Republican Party and its players, Thune took a slightly different approach.

He presented himself as a contrast to Obama, but he also tried to mix it up a little with the field.

He poked at potential Republican primary competitors Romney, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin right off the bat, reminding the audience, "I've never had a book signing. I've been to Iowa plenty of times, but it's usually on my way to South Dakota. And the closest I've come to being on a reality show is CSPAN's live coverage of the Senate floor. "

Romney just re-released his book, "No Apology," last week and has been promoting it. Pawlenty recently released a book, "Courage to Stand," and has been barnstorming Iowa already. Palin stars in a show about her life in Alaska on TLC.

Thune pointed out that he has been spending his time working for his constituents. He later mentioned that he sat next to Democratic Sens. Tom Carper of Delaware and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York during the State of the Union address and joked, "Apparently it takes two Democrats to balance me out."

Advisers explained that Thune's presentation was meant to suggest he is the most conservative option to Obama who is also electable.

As Romney continues to plug his wife's eagerness to have him run for president in 2012, Thune promoted his wife, Kimberley, at both the open and close of the speech.

Near the end of his speech, he discussed his unsuccessful bid to unseat Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson in 2002 and successful second attempt at a Senate seat in 2004 when he ousted then-Majority Leader Tom Daschle.

"I'll never forget what my wife said the day we decided to run," he said. "She said, ‘I finally concluded and realized that what we went through in that Senate race in 2002 wasn't just about the winning. It was about being in the race.'"

"What?" he improvised, to laughs.

He continued, "I thought that was a pretty profound observation, because, for me, it's always about winning. I'm a competitor and I'm in it to win it. But she was saying that - win or lose - it's important to be in the arena. It's important to be out there and fighting for what we believe in. She was right then, and she's right now."

Some Republicans have speculated over the past year that Thune may need to run in 2012 in order to have a good shot at the presidency in future cycles if he is not successful now. And toward the end of his remarks, he warned, "We may not win every battle every time," but he urged the crowd to "have the courage to continue our fight" and "make 2012 our moment."

If Thune chooses not to run for president, advisers say he will look at the race for GOP whip now open after Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl announced his decision Thursday not to seek re-election, but for now he's still torn. Just as he was preparing to deliver his remarks, a loud "run, John, run" chant came from several young attendees in the audience.

And asked by RealClearPolitics this week what reporters should be writing about him these days, he joked, "Just make it up as you go along."

In a CPAC speech that mixed conservative red meat with humor that mostly came at President Obama's expense, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty positioned himself as a mainstream conservative who could appeal to both fiscal and social conservatives, even as other prospective Republican presidential candidates have focused mainly on pocketbook issues.

"One of the most important things that we should always remember is the motto of our country, In God We Trust, and we should stand on that foundation as our founders intended," Pawlenty said. "Ladies and Gentlemen, we as a nation must move towards God, not away from God."

Pawlenty made sure to distinguish himself from former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney-a likely 2012 rival for the GOP presidential nomination, who spoke at the conference earlier on Friday-by attacking Obama over the health care reform law.

Romney has been criticized in conservative circles for enacting a law in Massachusetts that also included an individual mandate for citizens to buy insurance. Though he did not mention Romney by name, Pawlenty's jab sounded like the opening salvo of a broader attack that he is likely to launch against the early GOP frontrunner in the coming months.

"The individual mandate in Obamacare is a page right out of the Jimmy Carter playbook," Pawlenty said. "The left simply doesn't understand."

Pawlenty spoke in front of a mostly receptive crowd in a packed ballroom, but he had the misfortune of having to speak directly before Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), who has a massive following of enthusiastic supporters here who cheered nearly every line of his speech.

As he did in his recently released book, Courage To Stand, Pawlenty touted his blue-collar biography in an effort to present himself as someone who is intimately familiar with economic hardship.

"For me, that real world experience started in my hometown of South St. Paul, Minnesota - a place filled with good-hearted people, strong families and the rock-solid values of the heartland," Pawlenty said. "Back in the 60s, when I grew up there, it was home to some of the world's largest stockyards and world's largest meat-packing plants. Many, many families in my hometown relied on those big plants for their paychecks, for their family's well-being and for their future. But those plants shut down, and so did a big part of the spirit and the soul of my hometown."

Hitting on many of the themes about the unsustainability of the federal deficit that nearly every speaker has focused on at CPAC, Pawlenty said that the issue was not one that was "a matter of right versus left."

"It's a matter of 6th grade mathematics," he said. "It isn't going to work. It's irresponsible, it's unsustainable-it's reckless. And just because we followed Greece into democracy, does not mean we need to follow them into bankruptcy."

On the day when Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced his resignation amid a popular uprising in Cairo, Pawlenty listed the Muslim Brotherhood among foreign entities that Obama had "appeased." He said that the current administration did not understand the principle of projecting strength in the international arena.

"Bullies respect strength, they don't respect weakness," he said. "So when the United States of America projects its national security interests here and around the world, we need to do it with strength. We need to make sure that there is no equivocation, no uncertainty, no daylight between us and our allies around the world."

Former Massachusetts Republican Gov. Mitt Romney offered a sweeping preview of his message for his all-but-announced 2012 presidential run Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

In a speech designed to paint him as a credible general election challenger to President Obama, Romney went after the president right off the bat, lambasting his attempts to shake up his staff and embrace centrism as merely cosmetic.

"Make no mistake: What we are watching is not Brave New World; what we're watching is Groundhog Day!" he said to laughs in the crowd.

His speech was sprinkled with snarky comments to suggest that as president of the United States, Obama has been out of his league.

Romney denigrated Obama for promising that the unemployment rate would stay below 8 percent and then volunteering that it could be worse.

"It could be worse? This is the leader of the free world's answer to the greatest job loss since the Great Depression?" he asked. "What's next? Let them eat cake?"

He went on, sniping Obama, "Oh, excuse me. Organic cake."

Romney pointed out that there are more people out of work in the United States than are working in Canada.

"Let me make this very clear. If I decide to run for president, it won't take me two years to wake up to the job crisis threatening America. And I won't be asking Timothy Geithner how the economy works." He added, "I know."

His prepared remarks read "Tim Geithner," but Romney threw in the Timothy to play to the crowd. They also did not include the, "I know."

Romney also greeted Obama's outreach to CEOs with cynicism.

"His idea of conservative economic policy is to invite some corporate CEOs to the White House for an evening of table-talk," he said. "I'm sorry, Mr. President, but that's not a policy. It's a dinner party."

While he employed humor and sarcasm to rip the president, Romney's larger message was that Obama was never ready to lead the nation at home or abroad -- a message he used to hint that he is in fact qualified.

"It's going to take more than new rhetoric to put Americans back to work - it's going to take a new president," he said to cheers.

He also compared Obama to failed presidents of the past, noting that the job fairs and the unemployment lines around the country are Obama's "Hoovervilles," and that the unemployment rate is today's Misery Index. In doing so, he tied himself in a not-so-subtle way to President Reagan, who "hung the Misery Index around Jimmy Carter's neck."

Romney excoriated Obama's approach to the economy, bemoaning his embrace of "liberal social policies" like those in Europe, though he did not once mention the word "Democrat" during his speech. He did not mention Obama during the last quarter of his speech and instead pivoted to pushing his own likely 2012 campaign message, "Believe in America." The slogan, the subtitle of his re-released second book, "No Apology," appeared on bumper stickers and buttons throughout the conference as well as in his Twitter feed.

Romney tweeted to his followers to use the hash tag, "BelieveinUSA," to respond to his speech.

Ann Romney's introduction for her husband, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, and the once and likely future candidate's own remarks about his wife at the beginning of his address at CPAC Friday underscored her importance as the Republican presidential primary campaign begins in earnest.

Romney's team has aggressively pushed Mrs. Romney's eagerness to see her husband run when many of the other potential spouses, save largely Todd Palin, have not been in the spotlight.

In fact, several potential candidates' wives have expressed reluctance at a potential campaign: notably Kimberley Thune, wife of South Dakota Sen. John Thune and Cheri Daniels, wife of Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels. Daniels and Thune, if they both ran, would both compete for some of the same voters in the Republican primary, and Ann Romney's eagerness to see her husband run is another concealed but aggressive play in Romney's run in the "invisible primary" going on before any candidates are actually in the race.

The potential candidate stressed his wife's commitment to the race in a conference call with donors on Friday, and she said in her remarks today, "I know Mitt as a person, a very good person. I have also seen him as a leader. And I, for one, would like to see him lead the country as president of the United States."

Romney did not take questions from the press after his own address, but he held a reception in Washington's Marriott Wardman Park afterward with supporters.

Asked by a reporter there what his wife's push to get him to run means, he said, "She speaks for herself." And pressed on whether they're arguing over it, he joked, "Happens all the time."

As the Romneys and their staff exited, the overflow crowd from the reception chanted, "Romney," urging him to run.

Florida State Senate President Mike Haridopolos is attempting to establish himself as the early front-runner in the GOP Senate primary for the chance to take on Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson in 2012.

In a phone interview on Thursday, Haridopolos touted a recent day when he locked down $1 million in contribution commitments from donors in the state as evidence that he intends to make a strong run at the nomination. No other candidate has announced yet, but Republican Rep. Connie Mack, former Sen. George LeMieux and former state House majority leader Adam Hasner are checking out the race, too.

Haridopolos said he's intent on raising money in Florida for now before he returns to Washington because he wants to show operatives in the Beltway that he's capable of pulling in state money first. He also scored the endorsement of state House Speaker Dean Cannon.

The candidate noted that he will roll out the endorsements of more statewide officials in the coming months.

He also noted that he's not paying attention to his potential primary opponents and "has blinders on" about his own campaign. In fact, his strategy has thus far been to paint himself as a general election opponent to Nelson: He challenged not his primary opponents but Nelson to a ban on fundraising during the state legislative session from March 8th to May 8th. Haridopolos said if Nelson doesn't raise money during that time, he won't either.

With Nelson running full speed ahead for re-election, such a scenario is highly unlikely, and the senator is unlikely to do anything that would elevate any of his potential opponents over the others.

f energy legislation gets a serious spot on the agenda for Congress this summer - and it might with gas prices now above $3 per gallon - expect Ohio's politicians to play starring roles in the debate, particularly because strategists expect the Obama administration to focus its energy efforts on Ohio's needs given the state's importance in the 2012 election.

And with that developing dynamic, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity announced this week that Ohio native Bob Paduchik joined the non-partisan organization as senior vice president for state affairs and outreach.

Paduchik's claim to political fame is rooted in President Bush's re-election victory in 2004, when he ran the critical Ohio campaign for the GOP. In the past campaign cycle, he managed Republican Sen. Rob Portman's victory in the state.

Steve Miller, the organization's president and CEO, noted the importance of Paduchik's Ohio roots in a statement announcing the hire.

"His leadership and expertise will be critical to our issue awareness campaign in key states like Ohio and all across America," he said of the Republican strategist.

Paduchik's official government experience includes a stint at the Department of Energy as a Bush administration appointee.

Business magnate and television personality Donald Trump told a fervent -- albeit heavily divided -- CPAC crowd on Thursday that he would decide by June whether he would run for president.

As he took the stage in front of a packed house in the main ballroom at the annual conference attended by conservative activists, someone in the crowd shouted, "You're hired!" -- a variation on Trump's catch phrase from his reality television show, "The Apprentice."

Trump's speech was heavy on his characteristic bombast. He boasted that he had made billions of dollars and had attended the best business school in the country and said that he had come out "very, very victoriously" in the many battles he had waged in his life.

"Steve Forbes stated that I was one of the greatest entrepreneurs in the history of free trade," Trump said.

Trump was eager to emphasize that he was serious about his presidential ambitions, telling the crowd that he would prefer to remain in the business world but did not yet see another suitable candidate rising to the challenges facing the country.

"The United States has become a whipping post for the rest of the world," Trump said. "The world is treating us without respect. They are not treating us properly. America today is missing quality leadership, and foreign countries are quickly realizing this."

Trump laced his speech with heavy criticisms of President Obama and declared himself to be pro-life, against gun control and an opponent of the health care reform law. He said that Obama "came out of nowhere" and seemed to question the president's documented personal history, claiming that people who went to school with Obama "never saw him. They don't even know who he is."

On foreign policy, Trump sounded particularly skeptical of the intentions of China and the OPEC nations and said that if he had "an admiral and a couple good ships" to deal with Somali pirates, he would "blast them out of the water so fast."

Trump's speech was interrupted at least twice by some of the legions of supporters of Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), who form a sizable presence at CPAC.

"By the way, Ron Paul cannot get elected, I'm sorry," Trump said after the second eruption, drawing a few shouts of "Fascist!" from the crowd.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Thursday hammered the Obama administration on a host of issues and promoted his own energy proposals during a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

Gingrich's address was characteristically heavy on policy, as he opined on issues ranging from the German stock market to the newest generation of nuclear power plants. However, he also sprinkled his address with sound bite-ready slogans befitting a possible future campaign.

"2010 was the appetizer," the potential Republican presidential candidate said of GOP victories in the midterm elections. "2012 is the entrée."

Gingrich made several of the kinds of references to the 40th president that are near requisite at conservative gatherings and declared flatly, "Barack Obama is no Ronald Reagan."

The former speaker joked that he wanted to give Obama an opportunity to be the keynote speaker at next year's CPAC if the president were to decide to move to the political center, but Gingrich offered a blunt take on his view of where Obama stands on the major issues of the day.

"The Obama administration is anti-jobs, anti-small business, anti-manufacturing, pro-trial lawyer, pro-bureaucrat, pro-deficit spending and pro-high taxes," Gingrich said to the cheering crowd.

The second half of Gingrich's speech focused mostly on his "all-American energy plan," which the former speaker was promoting through his advocacy group, American Solutions.

Gingrich repeated his call for a new environmental solutions agency to replace the Environmental Protection Agency and said that the U.S. needed to more aggressively develop all sources of available energy for the sake of economic prosperity, environmental protection and national security.

"We need an American energy policy," Gingrich said. "By contrast, what you have from the Obama administration is a war against American energy. They just can't help themselves. Even in the State of the Union, at a time when we're facing rising oil prices, what does the president want to do? He wants to raise taxes on oil and gas."

Gingrich has long been outspoken in his support of ethanol subsidies, which are generally popular among Iowa caucus-goers but anathema to many fiscal conservatives.

The former speaker is heading back to the nation's first voting state on Saturday for a tour of a hospital and a meeting with local small business leaders in Iowa City.

Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl will announce today that he will not seek re-election in 2012, GOP sources confirmed.

In advance of Kyl's announcement, there has already been activity percolating in the state among potential contenders who hope to succeed him.

Republican Rep. Jeff Flake has been the most active and has already held campaign meetings, according to sources in the state.

Other potential Republican candidates include Rep. Trent Franks and former Rep. John Shadegg. There is some discussion in the state that freshman Rep. Ben Quayle could be an attractive candidate as well. Sources say that former congressman J.D. Hayworth and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio are also considering running for the seat.

Flake may have some difficulty in a Republican primary, but Republicans in Arizona said Gov. Jan Brewer, who is term-limited and cannot seek re-election in 2014, may take a good look at the Senate race. Brewer is wildly popular with Republicans in the state after ushering through a tough immigration law last spring, and developing conventional wisdom in the party is that she might clear the field if she ran.

On the Democratic side, it was long expected that Rep. Gabby Giffords would run for Kyl's seat if he did not run in 2012. She also has been mentioned as a leading contender for the open governor's race in 2014.

Her ability to run in either race remains to be seen, though, after being shot in the head during an event in Tucson last month. Recent reports indicate that she has been making a dramatic recovery and has regained her speech.

Her political future is the source of a both hot and sensitive debate in the Grand Canyon State. Republicans, who have long regarded her as the hardest Democrat to beat, believe she would be unstoppable if she ran for higher office in the next several cycles.

There is another female giant of Arizona Democratic politics who might look at the race: former Gov. Janet Napolitano, the secretary of Homeland Security. Napolitano was mentioned as top contender to take on Republican Sen. John McCain in 2010, but President Obama tapped her for his Cabinet.

She might be ready to move on from her administration role. Sources in the state said Napolitano has already begun calling out to activists in the state to gauge support.

Jimmy McMillan is back.

The candidate who ran for governor of New York on the "Rent is Too Damn High" ticket in 2010 is now appearing in a new TV ad cut by the Yale-based Students for Daniels draft movement seeking to draft Indiana GOP Gov. Mitch Daniels into the 2012 presidential race.

In the spot, two Yale students sit across the table from McMillan, explaining to him that they are trying to get Daniels into the race but need a slogan that addresses the country's debt.

"We think he's the only candidate capable of dealing with this enormous debt and turning deficits into surpluses," says the draft's political director, Michael Knowles, in the ad.

In jumps McMillan, who says, "Now wait a minute. The deficit is too damn high." He continues riffing on the theme.

Knowles, who said he's an actor outside of his political life in college, said of shooting the ad with McMillan, "It was the most fun I've ever had."

Knowles and McMillan appeared in the ad alongside Courtney Pannell, another student participating in the draft movement who appeared in the group's first TV spot that aired on another small buy in Iowa and New Hampshire.

As Knowles put it, McMillan was a "big sensation in the New York governor's debate." And the students involved in the draft Daniels movement thought he would be the ideal communicator to get across their message and get more attention with a second spot. They traveled to New York Tuesday to shoot the ad.

The new one-minute ad will air locally in Washington, D.C., on Friday morning ahead of Daniels's Friday night appearance at CPAC, the conservative gathering that takes place at the Marriott Wardman Park Thursday through Saturday.