WASHINGTON — Conservative stalwart Newt Gingrich has done nothing to lay the foundation for a presidential run except talk — yet he ranks third among Republicans in most national polls.

“We need to stand decisively for the values and principles of the future of the American people,” the former House speaker from Georgia declared Saturday to GOP activists who gave him a celebrity’s welcome at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference.

Grinning, he slowly ambled down an aisle toward the speakers’ stage to the strains of “America the Beautiful,” thundering applause and chants of “Newt! Newt! Newt!” His audience — many in their 20s — reached out to touch him and take his picture.

Over the past few weeks, at least four polls have put Mr. Gingrich behind only Mayor Giuliani and Senator McCain of Arizona. Governor Romney of Massachusetts came in fourth.

The ranking reflects Mr. Gingrich’s status among the party’s right wing as well as the Republican base’s discontent with Messrs. Giuliani, McCain, and Romney.

Unlike Mr. Gingrich, the three are actively campaigning for the nomination and are considered the party’s strongest contenders so far.

Conservatives, however, are wary because they don’t trust that any of the three will sincerely champion their causes.

“A lot of Republicans are still searching,” WendAy Nanney, chairwoman of the GOP in Greenville County, S.C., said recently. Her counterpart in Iowa’s Henry County, Robin Malmberg, agreed, and said: “Mr. Gingrich may be one that people can rally around.”

Beloved by conservatives, Mr. Gingrich helped develop the “Contract with America” manifesto of 1994 and end four decades of Democratic power in the House. He abruptly resigned as speaker after a rocky four years and following the GOP’s poor showing in the 1998 elections.

Now an author and lecturer, Mr. Gingrich remains popular in the party.

“We’ve got to have him in the race because he’s got to focus the entire American dialogue,” said Susan Mason, 55, of Alexandria, Va., as she clutched a stack of his books for him to sign after his speech. “His time is now.”

“He’s the only one who can turn this country around from the mess that it’s headed toward,” added James Kimmey, 19, a student at conservative leader Jerry Falwell’s college, Liberty University, in Lynchburg, Va.

Despite his popularity, Mr. Gingrich has thus far spurned calls to seek the presidency. He insists he will wait until the fall to decide whether to run.

In his only mention of the race Saturday, Mr. Gingrich proposed that every candidate pledge that if they win their party’s nomination, they will hold 90-minute debates once a week between Labor Day and Election Day in 2008. The goal, he said, is an honest dialogue free of spin, just “two adults, face to face.”

“Other than that, I’m not going to think about the presidential campaign until the 30th of September,” Mr. Gingrich told the activists.

In the meantime, he is spending his time traveling the country and talking up policy proposals laid out in his 2005 book “Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America.”

He has said he hoped “to create an entire wave of new ideas” that the party or a presidential candidate could adopt as “big solutions” to problems such as health care, energy, education, national security, and immigration.

Should the race appear locked up by fall with a candidate who is embracing such cures for the nation’s ills, Mr. Gingrich has said he probably will stay out of the way. But if that is not the case, he has said he very well could jump in as a “last resort.”

“If no one in the existing field has staked a strong claim on conservative voters by next fall, a Mr. Gingrich candidacy would turn the entire field upside down three or four times over,” said Dan Schnur, a GOP strategist in California who is neutral in the race.

“If he does decide to run, conservatives will have been taking a look at this field for almost a year and not found anyone with whom they’re comfortable,” Mr. Schnur added.

Ten months before the first primary contests, Mr. Gingrich has not taken any of the steps that traditionally lead to a presidential run. He has not formed an exploratory committee and he does not have a national campaign headquarters or a campaign staff.

Still, Mr. Gingrich is clearly a favorite for some, and he could be counting on a groundswell of conservative support if he gets in the race.

So far, there’s an online effort to encourage him to run, www.draftnewt.org.

And, last week, a presidential straw poll of members of Citizens United, a conservative advocacy group, found Mr. Gingrich getting the most support.

If he does not get in, Mr. Gingrich still could benefit from a year’s worth of speculation about a possible White House run.

He now heads a consulting company in Washington, but all the buzz could help him lay the groundwork for a political second-coming.

At the very least, the talk could be profitable — boosting both book sales and demand for appearances on the lucrative lecture circuit.