text: 2012 presidential election Bolton considered running for president in the 2012 U.S. presidential election. He received attention in conservative circles, including the cover of the December 31, 2010, issue of National Review magazine. He told Politico: "As I survey the situation, I think the Republican field is wide open. I don't think the party's anywhere close to a decision. And stranger things have happened. For example, inexperienced senators from Illinois have gotten presidential nominations." In September 2011, Bolton said he would not run for president in 2012.
  During the Republican primary, Republican presidential-hopeful Newt Gingrich said he would ask Bolton to serve as his Secretary of State. In January 2012, Bolton endorsed Mitt Romney for the 2012 Republican Nomination.
  American Enterprise Institute
  Bolton was senior vice president of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, from 1997 to 2001. At the time, he frequently wrote columns criticizing the Clinton administration's foreign policy. Bolton said Clinton's policy on Iraq was "worse than incompetent", his policy on North Korea was "egregiously wrong", and his Libya policy was a "catastrophic loss of U.S. credibility."
  After leaving the George W. Bush Administration in 2006, Bolton returned to the American Enterprise Institute as a Senior Fellow. From 2010 until 2018, Bolton served as Director, Foreign and Defense Policy Studies for AEI. In Bolton's time at the American Enterprise Institute, he spoke against the policy of rewarding North Korea for ending its nuclear weapons program. He said the policy would encourage others to violate nuclear non-proliferation rules so they could then be rewarded for following the rules they'd already agreed to.