Blog Posts by Rachel Rose Hartman, Yahoo! News

obamabcThe White House on Wednesday morning released the president's long form birth certificate (pdf) in an attempt to put "birther" questions to rest.

"The President believed the distraction over his birth certificate wasn't good for the country. It may have been good politics and good T.V., but it was bad for the American people and distracting from the many challenges we face as a country," White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said in a statement.

The president had released his certificate of live birth in 2008, but many "birthers" said the absence of a long form birth certificate prompted questions about Obama's birthplace of Hawaii. In recent weeks potential GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump has brought birther questions into the forefront of the media.

Welcome to First Ticket, a morning snapshot of the day's political news.

• The president is set this week to announce changes to his national security team. (Washington Post)

• House Republicans are under attack for Medicare changes in their proposed budget. (New York Times)

• Obama and the First Lady today tape appearances on the Oprah Winfrey Show. (44)

• Donald Trump heads to New Hampshire, where state politicos are worrying about their primary. (The Note)

• Oh, and only 43 percent of Americans surveyed are certain of Trump's birthplace. (FiveThirtyEight)

Here are the stories we took note of today but didn't give the full blog treatment:

• It's still unclear who will be showing up to the first presidential debate. (The Caucus)

• Haley Barbour informed his staff of his presidential plans just minutes before he released his statement to the press. (The Guardian)

• Democrat Hector Balderas, a state auditor, announced his entry into the New Mexico Senate race. (The Fix)

• And Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts drew a major Democratic challenger. (Hotline On Call)

107857641Feel like you already have a handle on who will be running for the presidency in 2012? Not so fast, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus told reporters Tuesday.

"Many of the folks that are exploring running for president will likely get in the race," Priebus said at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast in Washington D.C. "And perhaps some other folks we're not talking about might get in the race."

Priebus reportedly said that the high stakes of the 2012 election mean that some politicians will feel "compelled" to enter the presidential contest. Priebus declined to name names, but assured reporters: "I don't think we're going to have any lack of candidates."

Currently, there is no clear Republican frontrunner, though businessman Donald Trump has been quick to fill that hole--in part by making news by questioning President Obama's birthplace.

But Priebus on Tuesday made clear that the GOP establishment is not on board with the "birther" phenomenon.

jboehnberabcHouse Speaker John Boehner served up some harsh advice for President Obama Monday in an interview with ABC News.

During a discussion of the president's bipartisan deficit commission, the Ohio Republican said:

While I didn't agree with everything they did, there was a lot in their proposal that was worth of consideration. And what did the president do? He took exactly none of his own deficit reduction commission's ideas. Not one. Come on! It's time to grow up and get serious about the problems that face our country.

Watch a clip of the interview below:

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Donald Trump may have no political experience, no real campaign, and no firm grasp of the 2012 campaign scene. So why has the real estate magnate climbed to the top of early presidential polls?

Trump wasn't even a major part of the 2012 discussion until this February when gay rights Republican group GOProud invited Trump to speak at this year's annual Conservative Political Action Conference as a way to shake things up.

But now he's a regular staple of the national news media diet, he's topping national and even state polls of the presidential race, and major political strategists are recognizing him as a serious candidate.

So how did he get here? Below, we take a look at who Trump has to thank for his early surge:

AP110412155704Hey Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. (And later today, Ron Paul.)

Karl Rove has a little advice for you: The clock is ticking on your slow-motion presidential rollouts.

The ultra-tentative nature of announcement for the 2012 presidential cycle may be good for headlines, but the former George W. Bush adviser cautioned during an appearance on Fox News last night that this wait-and-see approach can come with plenty of hidden costs.

"There gets to be a point at which you don't have enough time to raise the money you need, and you don't have enough time to get organized as deeply as you need to be organized for these contests," Rove said. "That period is probably sometime in June or July."

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Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul confirmed on Fox News' "Sean Hannity Show" Monday night that today he will announce an exploratory campaign for president.

"We're going to announce that I'm going to start an exploratory committee," Paul told Hannity when asked about an event scheduled for Tuesday afternoon in Iowa. "That might lead to the next decision."