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.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, whose Iowa supporters say they're not counting him out for 2012 just yet, currently sits atop the pack of Republican presidential hopefuls in the state.   

New numbers from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling show the former governor leading with 27 percent, followed by 16 percent for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and 14 percent for real estate mogul Donald Trump.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich comes in fourth with 9 percent of the vote, followed by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin at 8 percent and Reps. Michele Bachmann (Minn) and Ron Paul (Texas) tied at 6 percent. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty sits at just 5 percent.

In a race without Huckabee or Trump, Romney leads by 10 points, earning 25 percent of the vote to 15 percent for Gingrich, Palin and Paul.

Should he opt for another run in 2012, Huckabee will be the automatic favorite in Iowa — the state he won to lead off the 2008 race for the GOP nomination. The poll found Huckabee with the highest favorability rating among any of the rumored GOP contenders in the state. Nearly 70 percent of Republican voters surveyed said they have a favorable opinion of Huckabee, compared to just 19 percent who hold an unfavorable view.

The poll surveyed 419 Iowa Republican primary voters and has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4.8 percentage points.

Strategists and activists in Iowa have warned in recent weeks that potential supporters are likely to look elsewhere ahead of 2012 unless Huckabee starts campaigning in the state fairly soon. But some Huckabee backers in the state are actively working the list of former supporters in an attempt to keep up the grassroots energy for the former governor. 

Two of Huckabee's potential rivals have already hired away some of his '08 staffers. Eric Woolson, who managed Huckabee's effort in Iowa last time around, is advising Pawlenty. And Wes Enos, the former governor's '08 political director in Iowa has signed on as a consultant with Bachmann's political action committee.

Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) said he won't endorse in his state's Democratic Senate primary next year, but he had some harsh words for one candidate — former Rep. Ed Case.

Inouye, in a wide-ranging interview Monday with the Civil Beat, showed he's still unhappy that Case challenged Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) in the 2006 primary.

"Akaka was the incumbent. I had a good working relationship with him, and it was no secret. Mr. Case came to me, and I asked him, I said, ‘Are you running for the Senate?’ He says, ‘No.’ Forty-eight hours later, he announced, and in his headquarters were all [these] posters. And these posters are not made in 24 hours. It takes a little while to do this. I don’t mind people disagreeing with me. But on something like this, straight to my face," Inouye said.

The nine-term lawmaker endorsed Akaka in that race, but now that Akaka is retiring, Inouye said he won't be involved in the race for the Democratic nomination.

"I’m not going to be involved in the primary. That’s been my rule all along, with exceptions. … Obviously, I’ve got my own choice. I may not share it with you," he told the paper.

Case has declared his candidacy. Democratic Reps. Colleen Hanabusa and Mazie Hirono said they are considering running. Former Lt. Gov. Brian Schatz and former Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann are also thought to be mulling bids.

Hanabusa echoed Inouye's remarks about the lingering resentment against Case from his 2006 Senate bid in an interview with The Ballot Box earlier this month.

"When you look at the multi-cultural base of the community that we have there, it's something that probably does linger with a good portion of the Democratic base," she said.

Inouye was asked if he and Case had made amends.

"Well he came to see me and, you know, I let bygones be bygones. But I said something like, ‘When I get agitated and irritated, I might act up.' After all, I’m human, right? I can take a few blows. I’ll turn the other cheek. But I always remind myself there was only person qualified to be strung up on the cross. And I’m not the one."

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is taking aim at 25 House Republicans in a new ad campaign, hitting them over their support for Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wis.) 2012 budget. 

The effort will include radio ads, Web ads and automated calls into all 25 targeted House districts, including those of more than a dozen GOP House freshmen. The ads accuse House Republicans of voting to "end Medicare," stripping away benefits for seniors.

“This is a defining moment for House Republicans: they chose to end Medicare rather than end taxpayer giveaways for Big Oil or tax breaks for the ultra rich," DCCC Chairman Steve Israel (N.Y.) said in a statement. "We will go district by district to hold Republicans accountable for the wrong choice they made." 

The House passed the Ryan budget Friday with the support of all but four House Republicans.

Democrats see an enormous political opening in the budget proposal, with many spending the recess back in their districts holding events hammering the plan over its proposed changes to Medicare.

Rep. David Rivera's (R-Fla.) first-quarter fundraising haul can't be reassuring to national Republicans anxious to hang onto Florida's 25th congressional district next year. 

The freshman Republican, who has been dogged by questions about his financial dealings, raised just $75,000 during the first three months of the year, according to a report filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Rivera reported just $67,000 cash on hand and still has more than $130,000 worth of debt on the books, including close to $90,000 owed to a Florida-based media consultant.

Rivera is sure to be a Democratic target next year, and might even face a GOP primary challenge.

The Republican has been under investigation for allegedly failing to disclose $137,000 in loans, and The Associated Press reported earlier this year that Rivera paid himself hundreds of thousands of dollars in unexplained campaign reimbursements over his eight years in the State Legislature.

National Democrats have hammered the freshman Republican over the allegations in recent months and have used the investigation as an opportunity to lambaste House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and the new Republican majority over their promises of "no tolerance" on ethics questions.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) has vetoed a bill that would have required candidates to show their birth certificates in order to get on the state's presidential ballot.

Brewer, who vaulted to conservative stardom after signing a tough anti-illegal immigration measure into law, rejected the "birther" bill Monday, calling it a "distraction" that could have paved the way for "politically motivated decisions" about who receives ballot access.

"I never imagined being presented with a bill that could require candidates for president of the greatest and most powerful nation on earth to submit their early baptismal or circumcision certificates among other records to the Arizona secretary of state," Brewer wrote in a letter to the Speaker of the Arizona state House on Monday.

Republican sponsors of the measure in the State Legislature have denied the bill was aimed at President Obama.

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."

Brewer said she was hopeful the State Legislature would not override her veto.

"This bill is a distraction, and we just simply need to get on with the state's business,'" she said.

Brewer also vetoed a bill on Monday that would have permitted students to carry guns on college campuses, saying while she's a supporter of the Second Amendment, "the bill was just very poorly and sloppily written and it just was not defined in the manner of which people could interpret it or it could be enforced." 

In a new poll, 50 percent disapprove of Obama's job performance; 57 percent disapprove of his handling of the economy.