The Boston Globe notes Mitt Romney “did not form a political action committee, and he did not try to play a major role in the Republican Party” after his defeat last year. He knew “that the Romney brand of Mr. Fix-it had been undermined by his own words and failed strategy.”

“But as the calendar nears this week’s anniversary of his 2012 defeat, and a difficult year of reflection comes to a close, Romney is intent on re-emerging — slowly, carefully, in the calculated way of a cautious investor sensing an opportunity — but re-emerging nonetheless.”

“Texas tea party activists eager to send another firebrand in the mold of Ted Cruz to the Senate have launched a movement to draft evangelical historian David Barton to run against Sen. John Cornyn,” Politico reports.

“Political analysts doubt he could take down a candidate as well-funded, well-known and widely endorsed as Cornyn. But they’re not willing to count out an insurgent from the right — not after watching Cruz come from nowhere two years ago. Barton has deep political roots, having spent nearly a decade as vice chairman of the Texas Republican Party. He is a skilled orator. And he’s got the stagecraft down pat: He travels the country to deliver rousing tributes to patriotism, often in red, white and blue Western shirts.”

“I’m not planning for it, I just think it’s inevitable.”

— New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), quoted by Politico, saying that the message from his all-but-assured reelection will extend across the country.

Peter Hamby reviews Double Down: Game Change 2012 by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann and focuses on Mitt Romney’s wariness of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie during the presidential campaign.

“Halperin and Heilemann make abundant use of a vice-presidential vetting file dropped into their hands by someone in Romney’s orbit to illuminate secrets about the governor. Delivering the documents to the authors was a stunning breach of political decorum that can only be read as a giant middle finger at Christie and his aides.”

“His ‘disturbing’ research file is littered with ‘garish controversies,’ the authors write: a Justice Department investigation into his free-spending ways as U.S. attorney, his habit of steering government contracts to friends and political allies, a defamation lawsuit that emerged during a 1994 run for local office, a politically problematic lobbying career that included work on behalf of a financial firm that employed Bernie Madoff. And that’s not to mention the Romney team’s anxiety about the governor’s girth.”

Politico: “Well before the last votes are cast in the state’s off-year governor’s race, GOP leaders are already engaged in a spirited debate over why, exactly, a fight against a Democrat as flawed as Terry McAuliffe has turned into such a painful slog of a campaign. Even Republicans who haven’t yet counted out their nominee, state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, view the governor’s race as a profile in frustration for the GOP – an election that should have leaned toward the Republicans, but where Democrats have held a persistent lead in polling, money and tactical prowess.”

“The GOP’s internal discussion about the race mirrors much of the broader national tug of war within the conservative coalition, between officials and strategists who want the party to trim back some of its most confrontational tactics and hard-edged rhetoric, and activists bent on drawing the starkest possible lines of contrast with the Democratic party of President Barack Obama.”

In a visit to Iowa, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) became the most senior Democratic lawmaker yet to call on Hillary Clinton to run for president in 2016, “calling her the best-prepared to ‘vanquish’ tea party Republicans in the next election,” the Washington Post reports.

Said Schumer: “I am urging Hillary Clinton to run for president, and when she does, she will have my full and unwavering support.”

New York Times: “After many years as Mr. Clinton’s chief fund-raiser and then as the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Mr. McAuliffe has amassed one of the largest favor banks in American politics. And now as he reaches for elected office himself, Democrats are returning the favors with endorsements, strategic advice and, of course, an avalanche of money.”

“But Mr. McAuliffe also seems to have learned from his first run for governor of Virginia in 2009, when he was tagged as a carpetbagger and lost in the Democratic primary. In the years since, he has applied his famously effective scratch-my-back skills to the state’s Democratic hierarchy, which rewarded him by preventing a primary challenge this year.”

“He’s luckier than a dog with two dicks.”

— Bill Clinton, quoted in Double Down: Game Change 2012, about Barack Obama.

Washington Post: “Some of the biggest names in his party sat out the race or even switched sides. The governor he depended on to rally the troops disappeared into a fog of scandal. Many of the money men who had provided oomph in past elections vanished.”

“Given the obstacles Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II has faced this year — some beyond his control, some of his own making — the surprise in Tuesday’s vote for governor may be that the Republican candidate has kept the race as close as he has.”

A new Zogby/Newsmax poll finds Terry McAuliffe leading Cuccinelli by seven points, 43% to 36%, with Libertarian Robert Sarvis at 9%.