2012 Presidential Election, 2012 Republican Presidential Candidate | featured news

Rep. Ron Paul, a Texas Republican, is running for president for a third time.

Nothing like a busted Amtrak train to bring me face-to-face with the one man Republicans would love — and I mean LOVE — to get into the 2012 race for the Republican presidential nomination. Former governor Jeb Bush (R-Fla.) and his wife Columba were just a few rows behind me. So, of course, I couldn’t resist asking him a question he has heard myriad times. “Is there any possible way your party could convince you to run for president,” I asked? “I don’t think so,” he said. “A lot of people are asking me that, and it’s flattering.

Real estate magnate Donald Trump suggested Wednesday it's not much fun flirting with the idea of running for president in the face of relentless attacks and ridicule.

President Barack Obama has a wide lead over potential Republican rivals for the presidential election in 2012, but faces serious doubts about his handling of the U.S. economy, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found on Wednesday.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich set to announce his candidacy via Facebook and Twitter on Wednesday.

It may have been the moment when former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson extended his riff about how his reality TV show would be different from Sarah Palin’s “crawling on her hands and knees up the ice flow in Alaska.” Or perhaps it was when Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) explained why not everyone would use heroin if it were legalized.

Fox News Channel has terminated the contracts of paid contributors and potential 2012 candidates Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, a spokesman for the network confirmed to CNN. Contracts for the former House Speaker and former Pennsylvania senator were suspended until May 1 while they considered runs for the White House in 2012. Santorum, who will appear in Thursday's GOP presidential debate in South Carolina, has since formed a presidential exploratory committee....

As Donald Trump boasted that he was "very proud" of prompting President Obama to release his long-form birth certificate, some Republicans on Sunday sharply criticized the flamboyant New York real estate magnate for pushing the "birther" issue. Sen. Lindsey Graham, Gov. Robert McDonnell and Sen. Marco Rubio are among those suggesting Trump's focus on the issue was hurting the GOP cause.

Eager but unofficial GOP contenders for the White House are focusing their criticism on President Barack Obama and taking a kid-gloves approach to one another....

Perhaps more than any movement in recent memory, the tea party has changed American politics over the last two years.