McKay Coppins: “President Obama’s decisive reelection has promised the conservative new media four more years of fodder, but it’s also left some of its more earnest participants with a gnawing question: What went wrong?”

“The new online right came roaring out of 2008 convinced that the only reason Obama won was because John McCain’s weak-stomached campaign — cowed by the aura of the first black presidential nominee — had failed to document his ties to the radical left. Their mission would be to ‘vet’ the president as McCain hadn’t, and convince the American people to reject him.”

“Now the loose coalition of scrappy bloggers, advocacy journalists, and unrepentant trolls who spent four years writing about Jeremiah Wright and Saul Alinsky are coming to terms with reality: The polls weren’t skewed, and their narrative didn’t stick.”

Meanwhile, GOP strategist John Feehery tells Howard Kurtz: It’s time for his party to stand up to
“the Rush Limbaughs of the world.”

Joe Klein: “Has there ever been a less gracious presidential loser than Mitt Romney? I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt during the campaign. I figured he was just dialing for dollars when he massaged the Boca Raton fat cats’ fantasies about the lack of ‘responsibility’ on the part of the 47% who don’t pay income taxes. But it turns out he really believes that stuff.”

“There are sore losers in every election. But the quality of the carping is different this time. The sense that a ‘traditional’ America is being supplanted by something foreign–an amalgam of Greece and Kenya, perhaps–seems to have only intensified since the election.”

Mark Halperin notes Democrats are quickly trying to shape the rapidly forming 2016 Republican presidential field.

“There’s one area where Democrats are really far ahead of Republicans right now. Science and technology, no. It’s doing this thing that Democrats failed to do in 2000, to stop George W. Bush, which is really, really early on using the left-wing Freak Show to define anyone who’s thinking of running for President, as quickly as possible, in negative terms on Twitter, on cable, on the Internet. They’re all over this Rubio thing because they want to control his image in a negative way and they did it this cycle too. They went after Romney early, it really hurt him. And they’re doing it now. And, you know, as a matter of just pure politics, it’s very effective because Rubio’s not full-time thinking about running for president. He’s out there dabbling but people on the Left will just be defining anyone who looks like they might be strong in four years.”

“What I’ve said to them is that I believe that God created the universe and that the six days in the Bible may not be six days as we understand it … it may not be 24-hour days, and that’s what I believe. I know there’s always a debate between those who read the Bible literally and those who don’t, and I think it’s a legitimate debate within the Christian community of which I’m a part.”

— Sen. Barack Obama, quoted by Slate in April 2008, when asked if the Earth was created in six days.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) was widely criticized for dodging a similar question this week.

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad (R) tells the Wall Street Journal he wants to do away with the Ames Straw Poll.

Said Branstad: “I think the straw poll has outlived its usefulness. It has been a great fundraiser for the party but I think its days are over.”

Iowa Republican: “It’s easy to understand why Iowa’s party bosses are quick to disagree with Branstad. The event is a huge moneymaker, creates a ton of media attention for Iowa and the caucuses, and forces candidates to start organizing the state early on in the process. The problem is that the Straw Poll has become a distraction for party staff because they spend more time and money organizing for a fundraiser than they do planning the caucuses.”

Politico: “Tired of presidential politics? Get over it: Upwards of 15 prominent Republicans are privately contemplating 2016 campaigns for the presidency — and the most serious and ambitious of the bunch are already plunging in, some quite publicly.”

Greg Sargent: “When all the votes are counted, could Mitt Romney really end up
achieving perfect poetic justice by finishing with 47 percent of the
national vote? Yup. Dave Wasserman of the nonpartisan Cook Political
Report says new votes in from Maryland put Romney at 47.56 percent. He predicts with certainty that with all of New York and California counted, Romney will end up below 47.5 percent of the vote.
Rounded, of course, that would put the final tally at 51% to 47%.”

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) tells ABC News that he is interested in a potential run for president in 2016.

“While Paul is quick to add that he isn’t ready to make a decision about a presidential bid yet, he is not hesitant to say that the Republican Party needs a new message,” including on immigration, defense spending and marijuana.

Said Paul: “I think we have to go a different direction because we’re just not winning and we have to think about some different ideas.”

The founder of “Unskewed Polls” has launched a new website alleging that President Obama did not legitimately carry Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Florida, but instead won those states — and the election — thanks to voter fraud, TPM reports. 

After months of speculation, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) announced he ”
won’t seek another term as governor, meaning whatever his political
future holds is likely be oriented around Washington rather than the
State Capitol,” the Virginian Pilot reports.

Said Warner: “I loved being Governor, but I have a different job now — and it’s here, in the United States Senate.”

Warner’s decision effectively makes 
Terry McAuliffe the likely Democratic frontrunner for the 2013
gubernatorial nomination.