The Warden

Compared with the early Democratic line, the list of possible GOP hopefuls looks about the size of the cast of “Les Misérables.”

Hence the basic irony inherent in the Obama presidency: He campaigned as a post-partisan, but his most lasting accomplishments will be those of a partisan.

If you want to understand the difference between a functioning democracy and Washington, listen to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie: “I wake up every morning knowing that even though I think I’m right,” the GOP governor said today, “I’m not going to get everything I want.”

Second, politics is being reborn. For a time, Republican candidates like Richard Mourdock of Indiana proudly declared that they didn’t believe in compromise. Political activists spent more time purging deviationists than in trying to attract new converts.

But that mania has passed. There are increasing signs that House Republicans are willing to unite behind Speaker John Boehner so he can cut a deal to avert the “fiscal cliff.” There has been an epidemic of open-mindedness as Republicans try to win minority votes and create a version of their party that can be competitive in states like Connecticut and California.

Most interesting to me: Perry had one of the best campaign machines in 2012, but just turned out to be a terrible candidate. I’m very interested in seeing how Jindal’s insider track works out.

Left out of the “BFF” narrative is the extent to which Perry’s campaign introduced Jindal to key voter blocs in early primary states, fine-tuned his skills on the stump, and propelled him back into the national spotlight.

Importantly, something the piece recognizes is that a lot more of the candidates are established and have long lists of credentials, unlike in previous years. We’re less likely to see unfortunate “legitimate rape” surprises.

What a difference two years makes for Senate Republicans. After a cycle punctuated by disappointing recruits, missed opportunities and disastrous results, the party has already started the new cycle on an impressive note, even before the new year — and a new campaign committee chairman — arrives.

We first conducted a detailed analysis of local newspaper coverage of House races in nearly 350 congressional districts across the country. Analyzing 4,748 articles, we found virtually no gender differences whatsoever.

(via John Sides)

Does this suggest that Mr. Romney’s campaign was smart to invest resources in Pennsylvania in the closing days of the campaign?

The short answer is yes. The longer answer is that it might have been better served by contesting Pennsylvania throughout the campaign, rather than just at the last minute.

One of the emerging post-campaign narratives is that all the outside money (more than $1.3 billion) that poured into the 2012 election didn’t buy much in the way of victories. And as we dig through the results in detail (our extensive data visualizations and analysis are below), the story holds up: we can find no statistically observable relationship between the outside spending and the likelihood of victory.

(via John Sides)

So let’s get the facts straight. Elections are rarely mandates. Brendan said this in 2004. I said it in 2008. Nolan said it yesterday. I’ll say it again. Voters don’t make choices by first formulating views on all sorts of issues, then figuring out where the candidates stand on these issues, and then choosing the candidate whose views best represent their own. In fact, often that story runs in reverse: they choose a candidate based on party or whatever, and then line up their views on issues to match the candidates.