Jill Colvin

A half-dozen potential Republican presidential contenders spent last week peacocking across the sprawling grounds of a pink-hued luxury resort, schmoozing with donors and sizing up the competition in the party’s most fractured field in decades.

The nation’s Republican governors on Wednesday lashed out at President Barack Obama’s plans to unilaterally protect millions of immigrants from deportation, but clashed over whether their congressional colleagues should threaten a government shutdown in response.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s brash, say-it-like-it-is persona has made him a political celebrity. But as he relinquishes his position as chairman of the Republican Governors Association this week, Christie shifts from advocate for others to salesman for himself as a potential 2016 presidential candidate.