Ann Coulter: ‘This is Chris Christie’s Year’; ‘Foregone Conclusion’ that Romney Will Be GOP Nominee Out of Current Field

ABC News’ Rick Klein (@rickklein) reports:

Conservative commentator and author Ann Coulter is a big fan of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie – so much so, she joked on ABC’s “Top Line,” that if Christie doesn’t run for president, “I’m his sworn enemy for life.”

If Christie doesn’t run, it’s a “foregone conclusion” that the current GOP frontrunner, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, will win the nomination in 2012, Coulter told us today.

“I think this is Chris Christie's year. And if Chris Christie doesn't run, I think no matter how much we talk about the other candidates — and perhaps I will be as wrong as many other predictions are these days — but I just think it's going to be Mitt Romney. And it's more fun to talk about a horse race, so we pretend that we don't all know that,” Coulter said.

“I tend to think it's a foregone conclusion, and that isn't a statement of preference necessarily. Unless a total star like Chris Christie jumps in, Republican primary voters, historically, have gone into the voting booth and voted for anyone whose name they've heard before. Sometimes that works out.”

Coulter said Christie, R-N.J., is the brightest star on a “farm team” of “stunning Republican talent” that she said includes Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and Rep. Alan West, R-Fla.

Coulter tweaked former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty for attacking Romney’s health care plan only after being criticized for three days for not having done so at Monday’s GOP debate.

“You probably shouldn't bother with coming back three days later,” Coulter said. “I thought he was fine during the debate. I think a lot of people in the media didn't like the Republican debate, because there wasn't much infighting. They were keeping their fire focused on President Obama. As a Republican, I liked that.”

“But yeah, three days later, I'm not sure. I don't know — maybe that's what they always do. It seems kind of rude to attack someone to his face.”

On the big story of the week, Coulter said Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., was probably right to resign.

“I do think it's funny that Bill Clinton wanted him to go. I mean, what Bill Clinton did was a million times worse, and the Democrats stood by him,” she said. “Teddy Kennedy, John Edwards… but I guess the Democrats thought it wasn't good for them politically. … What I don't understand is why he had to hold a press conference to resign.”

Coulter’s displays a characteristic lack of subtlety in her latest book: “Demonic: How the Liberal Mob is Endangering America.”

We asked her whether her descriptions of liberals as exhorting “mayhem, chaos, and destruction” was a call for conservative violence.

“I think the proof is in the pudding. Do you have tea partiers reading my book and going out and smashing Starbucks windows, or, you know, rushing to protest outside the Pentagon or the White House or something? You don't have conservatives behaving that way,” she said.

“It’s a striking fact that even, even in a street protest or gathering of the tea parties and the town halls over the past few years, the only violence that's been committed was committed by liberals against the conservatives and police stations…”

“It's always liberals committing the violence. What all we hear about conservatives is the threat of violence. ‘The danger. The emerging violent right-wing.’ But you never get any actual violence.”

Watch the full interview with Ann Coulter HERE.

Also today, we checked with The New York Times’ Ashley Parker on the fallout from the Weiner scandal and Huma Abedin’s role in convincing him to resign – plus some secrets about the work habits of ABC’s own Michael Falcone.

Watch the interview with Ashley Parker HERE.