Ron Fournier: “The election is three years away. It might as well be three decades away given the speed of modern culture. In 2005, three years before the Obama-McCain general election, USA Today published the result of a poll showing New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani as the front-runner for the 2008 GOP nomination.”

“Among Democrats, Clinton lapped the pack with 40 percent support. She led both Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards, the 2004 ticket. Obama was not even mentioned. That raises the question: Who is the 2016 dark horse?”

Noam Scheiber speculates that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) might challenge Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination if even it’s an uphill fight.

“All of which is to say, if Hillary Clinton runs and retains her ties to Wall Street, Warren will be more likely to join the race, not less. Warren is shrewd enough to understand that the future of the Democratic Party is at stake in 2016. At 64, she knows that if Hillary wins and populates yet another administration with heirs to Robert Rubin, it will be at least eight years before there’s another chance to reclaim the party.”

Said one former Warren aide: “Yeah, Hillary is running. And she’ll probably win. But Elizabeth doesn’t care about winning. She doesn’t care whose turn it is.”

“The 2013 elections amounted to a nightmare scenario for Republicans who had hoped the results might provide some resolution to their ongoing intraparty squabble,” Chris Cillizza writes.

“The end result is that both sides of the GOP argument live to fight another day, each emboldened by the election in their own way. That ‘next day’ will be in a series of Republican Senate primaries over the first seven months of 2014.”

“The first — and most telling — will be in Kentucky, where Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell faces wealthy businessman Matt Bevin in May… Then come two critical summer primaries: one in Mississippi and one in Georgia.”

In an interview on ABC News, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) brushed off criticism reported in the new book Double Down from a member of Mitt Romney’s 2012 vice presidential vetting team, saying his advice was not something he should “give a darn about.”

Said Christie: “First off, political advice from people who ran the Romney campaign is probably something nobody should really give a darn about, so let’s start with that.”

He added: “I’ll take Mitt Romney’s interpretation of all this, rather than some,
you know, paid political consultant who was, you know, trying to make
himself famous obviously in the book.”

“A dominant re-election victory in hand, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) is pursuing a path to bolster his resume as a get-it-done Republican leader and to broaden a national network of political allies,” the AP reports.

“This aggressive course is designed to strengthen his appeal as he considers whether to run for president in 2016… Christie’s advisers suggest he has a one-year window to stack up more accomplishments before lame-duck status — and a prospective White House campaign — interfere.”

“Business leaders are plotting to take down Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) as part of a broader effort to punish lawmakers over the government shutdown,” The Hill reports.

Prominent Michigan donors are requesting financial backing for Amash’s primary challenger, Brian Ellis (R), arguing that Amash “and others have effectively nullified the Republican majority in the U.S. House.”

Former Rep. Bob Dold (R-IL) “wants to get back to Congress — to take on his own party,” The Hill reports.

“Dold is attempting a comeback against former Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL), who he lost to by less than 2,500 votes in a heavily Democratic suburban Chicago district last fall. The self-described moderate hoping to win his rematch by painting himself as the more bipartisan of the two — and the one more willing to take on members of his conference.”

Marc Ambinder: “The ideal Republican strategy is not terribly convoluted. Find and nominate the most acceptable conservative. Find the swing states where demographic composition of the electorate has been volatile and where there is room among those demographic groups to grow the GOP’s share. Put the two together.”

“I would add: If I were Machiavellian, I would urge Republicans to do everything they can to suppress the Democratic vote. I am not Machiavellian, and plenty of Republicans are already doing this.”