>> julie: we begin with some of the g.o.p.'s biggest names, making rounds at the 5th annual values voters summit in washington. a host of potential 2012 hopefuls, addressing thousands of conservatives including former house speaker newt gingrich. >> conservatives in washington say washington is ripe for a revolution, the chairman of the liberty council asked the crowd, are you ready for an awakening in your generation, bob mcdonald said, the conservatives were sweeping the nation. >> we have to get people who believe in the conservative, pro family limited government, federalism ideas out in november. >> newt gingrich told the crowd they could take the house and senate back from what he called the political elite. >> we're at a great crossroads in american history. and that is part of why i think the insurgency is so helpful. and the energy of the tea party movement is helpful and toughness and eagerness to come and change washington by the knew candidates is useful. >> reporter: he pointed to a number of recent primaries and establishment candidates were knocked out by conservatives, including christine o'donnell from delaware. grassroots 7, little bit zero. islam has been a big topic for speakers here and bill bennett, host of "morning in america" spoke of terrorist acts made in the name of islam and islamic leaders who have not repudiated the acts. >> we are angry at what the religion has done to itself and to us. this is a righteous anger. we are angry at what leaders of this religion fail to say. >> reporter: activists head back to the districts on sunday and will attempt to turn the energy into votes. julie? >> julie: caroline shivley reporting from washington, thank you so much, gregg. >> gregg: the results of the highly anticipated straw poll are in. 2,000 conservatives voters putting in their two cents worth deciding who should run in 2012. here it is, according to the family research council, congressman mike pence is the winner. come in second, mike huckabee followed by mitt romney and newt gingrich and sarah palin and as for vice president, taking the lead, the former alaskan governor, first runner-up, former senator rick santorum, paul ryan, jim diment and hi huckabee. >> julie: alaska's lisa murkowski is not going away. the senator lost to joe miller in the republican primary and now she says she's planning to run anyway. asking voters to write her into. fox's casey steegel joins us live with more. why go ahead with this despite her loss in the primary. >> reporter: julie, first of all, it was a very close race, in fact her opponent, joe miller, an attorney, out of alaska, won the race by only about 1600 votes total. can you believe that? despite losing murkowski, she has a lot of name recognition in the state of alaska and served as state congresswoman for a few years and her father a u.s. senator and later went onto become the governor of alaska and was appointed to his senate seat in '02 and reelected by the people in '04. she says she's hearing a lot from her constituents. who are not pleased with the primary results, and that is one reason that she decided to put her name on the ballot again. listen: >> when those votes came in, on the 24th of august, when they were counted, there was nobody that was more disappointed than i was. but since then things have happened, events have transpired. and there has been an out-pouring of support from alaskans all over the state. >> reporter: now no doubt this is going to be an uphill battle for her because the only other person to get a u.s. senate seat as a write-in candidate was strom thurmond back in 1954. as we know. julie, well before the tea party movement. >> many in her republican party are upset over this, though, why? >> absolutely. this is -- ruffled a lot of feathers within the gospel. a lot of people are saying, look, this voters already spoke in the primary. and a handful of her colleagues in the senate and the republican party says that she needs to accept the defeat here, and former alaska governor sarah palin even chimed in and called this attempt a futile effort and the national republican senatorial committee did release a statement about this and we want to show you what that particular organization has to say, quote: if senator murkowski is truly committed to doing what is right for her state then we hope she will step forward and fully endorse joe miller'ses candidacy and you know, we talked about the tea party, there has been a lot of talk that joe miller's success in this campaign has come from the tea party movement, in fact the tea party express contributed more than $600,000 already, to his campaign, it will be interesting see where it goes, come november when voters head to the polls there. >> all right, casey steegel, thank you very much. gregg. >> gregg: former governor of alaska, sarah palin in iowa, headlining one of the state's most important republican events of the year, the ronald reagan dinner. while pushing for unity within the g.o.p., she did joke about speculations over her own possible presidential run in 2012. >> if the goal really is to take away the gavel from pelosi and reid, and to stop the obama agenda, and make government respect the will of the people, and this wisdom of the people, then it's time to unite. if i were in the hierarchy of leadership in the g.o.p., to rally the troops, you know what i would say, i would say, okay folks we have 46 days to go, i would say, diments you are awesome, need you sound done south, krauthammer, go east and rush, go deep, anywhere, everywhere, people are listening... >> gregg: and, washington borough chief for the "new york post," charlie, good to see you, is that an unofficial launch perhaps of the sarah palin in 2012 campaign or was she kind of dipping the toe in the water, to test the temp? >> i don't know, she's cagey about that stuff and i suspect dpraerng, you know, even sarah palin doesn't know if sarah palin will run at this point. either way, whether she's going to run in 2012 or if she's going to just remain a powerful force in the conservative movement, it is pretty smart to be in iowa, and to be making speeches like that. and to have people like you and me, talking about whether or not she'll run or is she or isn't she or is she going to remain a sort of mama grizzly in the conservative movement. >> gregg: we fell for it. didn't we? we are talking about it. i want to run a couple of polls by you, a fox news opinion dynamics poll came out yesterday and shows president obama's job approval rating is now -- has hit and all-time low, 42%. 52% disapproval rating but, as unpopular, charlie, as he is, his rating is still 12 points higher than sarah palin's which consistently hovers around 30%. does that perhaps suggest to you that she may not be the strongest g.o.p. challenger in 2012? >> there is no doubt, probably nobody on the -- few reasonable candidates, you know, among republicans. who have quite the high negatives that she has, but the important other important number here are the extraordinary positives that she has, really fer vent rock-solid base that will not desert her for anything and, probably she's -- the only other politician in america today who has that same sort of large rock-solid base is barack obama himself. no matter what he does, they will not leave him and, starting with that as a basis, i think she can probably turn a lot of the people who are you know -- would register negative feelings about her but, you know, don't really necessarily hate her. obviously there's a group that is going to hate her no matter what, and will never be able to turn them but i think in time and you know presenting the more reasonable and informed softer side of her we have seen the last 12 months or so, i think she can get into powerful, you know, a territory where she has pretty powerful numbers behind her. >> charlie there's another set of polls that shows a pretty striking dichotomy, a "new york times" poll this week, i'm sure you saw it, that found while congressional democrats have a horrible approval rating, republicans are ten points worse, now, juxtaposed to these numbers, another fox news opinion dynamics poll on the screen, where republicans are favored over democrats, by some 20 points among voters most interested in the election, meaning they are the ones motivated to vote. how can republicans be doing so well in a match-up and yet they are more generally unpopular than congressional democrats? >> i think, gregg, what it really is, is a pox on all their houses. people just cannot stand politicians. they can't stand democrats, can't stand republicans, can't stand any of them. is partly why the republican party is going through the whole tea party thing and people are, you know, more conservative, more likely to vote for republicans, but they even want to like, you know, change republicans? >> you know, they want change everywhere and -- but all of that bodes i think well for republicans, this november and then in two years i think still bodes well if republicans play their cards right because what it means is that, you know, people definitely don't want democratic congress the way it's run today with harry reid an knowns pelosi, wants something different from that and, whether we like it or not the only other people standing there, are the republicans, and i think they are getting the message, are starting to get the message that people are really ticked off at them, too, and especially, for, you know, how they sort of betrayed their principles, the last time we were in power. >> gregg: one thing is for sure, it's a wake-up call, probably for everybody. charlie hurt, washington bureau chief, the "washington post," thanks. >> thank you. >> julie: a rash of bloody attacks that's taliban makeses good on its threat to hit polling places in afghanistan during the parliamentary elections and violence killing at least 11 civilians and three afghan security forces according to the afghan interior ministry. connor powell is streaming live from kabul for us. hi, connor. >> reporter: hi, julie. well despite dozens of attacks across afghanistan, today, the afghan elections commission says 3.6 million afghans actually braved the vice and went out to vote today, a turnout of 1/3 of all of the eligible voters and is not a huge number, but is a significant number of afghans that actually turned out to vote. now, violence was one of the big concerns coming into the election, as was fraud and corruption. talking to independent watchdog groups they say there were widespread irregularities across afghanistan, things like the indellible ink that is supposed to prevent voters from voting multiple times was apparently easy to wash and wipe off hands, and there are reports of widespread voter intimidation by the taliban and also by local power brokers, now, despite the irregularities, across afghanistan, independent watch dogs say there was not a massive, systemic risk to the system here and fraud was sort of individual, localized and there was no big massive scheme to ruin this or corrupt the election. today, general petraeus, the top american commander here, and karl ikenberry, the u.s. ambassador, offered praise and congratulated the afghans for this election. nobody is saying this was a successful election but they do sound like it was a positive experience after last year's fraud-marred election where president hamid karzai was reelected. most people think the election was riddled with ballot-stuffing and corruption and so, now, people think it was a positive step forward, though, not a perfect election, a much better election than last year, julie? >> julie: connor powell, streaming live, thank you very much. gregg? >> gregg: pope benedict xvi holding mass in london's hydro park and drawing a very large crowd. notwithstanding fears of a suspected terrorist plot against him. british police arresting 6 men who work as street sweepers under the terrorism act and the threat level is listed as severe during his visit and the pope has been informed of the arrests and no changes to his itinerary are planned. thousands of people opposed to the pope's visit marching in central london earlier today, angry over issues ranging from the church's stance on abortion, homosexuality and contraceptives, to sexual abuse by priests and this was the largest protest of pope benedict xvi's five year papacy of the pope meeting with several people who were sexually abused by priests as children this morning and apologizing for the suffering experienced by the victims and their families. >> julie: the american hiker freed by iran is heading back to the u.s. as we speak. reuniting with her mother, at the airport at amman's capital, sarah shourd made her first public comment asking supporters to extend prayers to her fiancee and friends still detained in iran. >> today is the day my work begins and all of my efforts will go to help procure the same freedoms for my fiancee, shane bauer and my friend, josh fattal, because i can't enjoy my freedom without them. >> julie: secretary of state hillary clinton is appealing for the release of shane bauer and josh fattal but the foreign minister says it does not appear tehran is ready to cooperate. all three were arrested in july, of 2009, after illegally crossing the bored border and being accused of spying. >> gregg: an american couple under arrest accused of selling nuclear secrets to venezuela. scientist pedro maturoni and his wife work at a los alamos laboratory and he is telling an undercover fbi agent he could help venezuela build a nuclear bomb. julie kirtz is live in washington and have they been on the radar for a long time. >> reporter: i have been going through the indictment today and the fbi was tracking the couple for a while, since 2008 and combined have 40 years of experience, at the los alamos nuclear will be this new mexico and actio access to the restric information and according to the indictment the doctor and his wife, met with an undercover fbi agent, several times, over the last few years, the doctor allegedly told the under cover agent that he could develop a bomb for venezuela in ten years and, according to the indictment, he said with his technical help, venezuela could cause an explosion over new york that, quote, would not kill anybody but would destroy all the electrical power to new york, according to the fbi or federal indictment. the indictment says a document written and edited by the couple, was on the design and manufacture and use of atomic weapons and yes they have been tracking them quite some time. >> gregg: have we heard from the doctor about these charges against him? what does he say. >> >> reporter: he spoke tie fox reporters in new mexico last year after the fbi searched their home. he claimed at the time to have broken no laws, and said then all of the information that he released and sold allegedly to venezuela was in the public domain. here's his comments: >> they have to prove that these are secrets, real secrets, that i was selling the united states national securities by giving this information, to venezuela, that is what they have to prove. >> and again you say they will not -- >> nothing was secret. >> he appeared in federal court in albuquerque on friday and are charged with handing over secret weapons information, and the u.s., though, has not accused the venezuelan government of anything in this case, gregg? >> gregg: the comments, it is in the public domain, thus it's not a secret defense is an implicit admission that he was trying to help venezuela build a nuclear bomb and so it cuts both ways. julie kirtz, live in washington, thanks very much. >> reporter: sure. >> julie: it's deadly and drug resistant and showing up at hospitals, coast-to-coast and we'll talk to a doctor to find out exactly what you need to know, about the super bug, next, and, look out for that train! a new adrenaline rush apparently teens are chasing, after the break. ] there's a new way to let go of some of the annoying symptoms menopause brings. introducing one a day menopause formula. the only complete multivitamin with soy isoflavones to help address hot flashes and mild mood changes. new one a day menopause formula. activia is better than ever! hey, you guys. want to try activia's great new taste? 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