Gingrich would have to run his campaign differently from the way he ran the House to have a winning chance.

Sarah Palin is not close to forming a presidential exploratory committee, and the former Alaska governor may even skip that step if she decides to mount a White House bid.

In an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, Palin on Tuesday night said the formation of an exploratory committee "isn't even on the radar," claiming it's too early for such a move.

After Hannity noted that other GOP politicians have already formed exploratory committees, Palin indicated that if she gets in, she won't be putting her toe in the water.

"I've never really run for anything conventionally. ... I've just jumped in there and done it when I've known it's the right thing to do. So it's going to be an unconventional run if I choose to do that."

An Iowa staffer to likely GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty has resigned following his arrest on charges of public intoxication and trespassing. 

Benjamin Foster, the aide in question, submitted his resignation Saturday and Pawlenty's exploratory committee accepted it, spokesman Alex Conant confirmed Tuesday.

Foster was initially suspended for two weeks without pay following his arrest early April 6.

Police arrested Foster after he was found about 3 a.m. banging at the back door of a family's home in Ankeny, Iowa, a 20-minute drive north of the state capital of Des Moines. Foster was initially held at gunpoint by the family's father after the disturbance reportedly scared his 15-year-old daughter.

Foster had pleaded not guilty to the charges last week, according to the Associated Press.

-- This post was updated at 6:49 p.m.

Donald Trump said this week he could eliminate the nation’s deficit troubles without raising taxes by cutting defense spending or tinkering with Medicare. 

The real estate mogul, who’s mulling a run at the presidency next year, said it’s not those domestic policies — but the actions of foreign entities like China and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) — that are at the root of America’s fiscal woes.

“You know how you do it? By stopping what's going on in the world,” Trump told MSNBC on Monday, describing his deficit-reduction strategy. “The world is just destroying our country. These other countries are sapping our strength. OPEC is sapping our strength. We can't pay $108-a-barrel oil. It's sapping our country.”

Trump reserved his harshest criticisms for China's currency manipulation policy — a practice he said he could end by threatening stiff taxes on Chinese imports to the United States.

Former Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.), who served three terms in the House in the 1990s, is seeking a 2012 return to Congress.

Salmon officially announced a bid Tuesday for the seat Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) is vacating to run for Senate next year.

Salmon was swept in with the Republican wave in the 1994 midterm elections and held true to a campaign pledge to serve just three terms. After his reelection in 1998, Salmon bowed out, paving the way for Flake's election in 2000.

He went on to lose a race for governor in 2002 to Democrat Janet Napolitano, the current Homeland Security Secretary. 

"Over the past few years, we have watched as our taxpayer dollars have grown government and bailed out Wall Street," Salmon said in a statement announcing his 2012 campaign. "Government debt and Congressional inability to control spending is the greatest crisis facing America today."

Salmon joins Chuck Gray, the former leader of the Arizona state Senate, in the race for the Republican nomination in the solidly Republican congressional district.

The president of the Club for Growth encouraged longtime Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) to retire Tuesday rather than seek another term in 2012, warning that the group could get involved in the effort to oust Lugar in a primary.

In an interview on ABC's "Top Line" webcast, Club for Growth President Chris Chocola said while no decisions have been made as to whether the club will officially weigh in on the race between Lugar and Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock (R), "we do have some concerns about Sen. Lugar and his service."

"We think it would probably be best if he would retire at this point," Chocola said of Lugar, who has vowed to beat back a primary challenge and win another term in 2012. "We haven't made any decisions at this point, but we are looking at it very closely, and it's one of the races very high on our radar."

Chocola said the group is also waiting to see whether strong primary challenges to GOP Sens. Olympia Snowe (Maine) and Orrin Hatch (Utah) develop ahead of next year.  

Backing from the Club for Growth could translate into a significant fundraising boon for Mourdock if the group endorsed in the primary and used its network to help raise money. 

Lugar is sitting on a $3 million war chest ahead of 2012.

In Arizona, the Club has already raised more than $350,000 for Republican Rep. Jeff Flake's 2012 Senate bid. An early favorite of the Club, Flake was endorsed by the group the same day he declared his intention to run for the upper chamber.

Flake brought in more than $1 million during the first quarter of the year — nearly 35 percent of those contributions were earmarked through the Club for Growth.  

Chocola also continued his group's battle with real estate mogul Donald Trump on Tuesday, telling "Top Line" that while Trump is a "great showman," he's no fiscal conservative. 

"We are not fearful of his candidacy at all, but he is not conservative, he is not pro-growth and he is not a good choice for economic conservatives," Chocola said of Trump.

Vice President Joe Biden joked Tuesday that he hopes it's real estate mogul Donald Trump representing Republicans atop the GOP's 2012 ticket.

Biden said that he and President Obama are gearing up for a reelection fight that will highlight the differences between their administration and Republican counterparts.

And perhaps based on a sense that he and Obama would match up favorably against Trump, Biden said he hoped the host of NBC's "The Apprentice" would be the nominee.

“The Republicans this time are totally, and I don’t mean this in a pejorative sense, are out of the closet," Biden said at a fundraiser in Cleveland for Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown (D), according to a pool report. "They are laying out for the first time what they are for and how they think they are going to deal with the problem. That’s a debate I can hardly wait for – hopefully with Donald Trump.”

Obama himself dodged a question last week in an interview with ABC News about his own opinions of Trump, who has climbed in polls of Republican voters' preference in a presidential candidate, driven in part by his media presence and questioning of Obama's birthplace.

Indiana Republican state Sen. Mike Delph, who's still weighing a potential primary challenge to Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) next year, is pushing state lawmakers to take another look at his bill that would require presidential candidates to produce a birth certificate. 

Delph introduced a bill earlier this year to mandate presidential hopefuls produce the document in order to get on the ballot, but the measure is stuck in committee.

Now, he wants a legislative study committee to take up the issue, hoping it will gain some additional traction, telling a local radio station that he thinks a "trust but verify approach" is reasonable.

Delph had been urged by some activists to challenge Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) in a primary next year, and even with State Treasurer Richard Mourdock in the race, Delph still hasn't officially ruled out a bid.

On Monday, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) vetoed a bill passed by the GOP-led legislature in that state that would have required candidates to prove they were born in the U.S. in order to get on the state's presidential ballot.

In an interview on Fox News Monday night explaining her veto, Brewer told Greta Van Susteren that she felt "very, very uncomfortable" with the bill, saying, "I feel that it serves no purpose."

BP Corp. North America gave $5,000 each to Speaker Boehner and House Majority Whip McCarthy.