Ballot Access News reports that 25 minor party and independent candidates were elected to state legislatures this month.

“Checking records of past elections reveals that this is the highest such number since 1942, when there were 31 such candidates elected. In 1944, there were 22 such candidates elected, and at no time since 1944 (until 2012) had there been any election with more than 17.”

Peggy Noonan: “Thank goodness… for Mitt Romney, who in a conference call with donors said he got beat and beat bad, that his campaign was lacking, that his gut on the big issues was probably off, that he shouldn’t have allowed his campaign to become (in the grandiose, faux-macho lingo of campaign…) an air war and not a ground war, and that they were smoked in get-out-the-vote. He added, with an eye to concerns larger than his own, that he wanted to help the party analyze and define what didn’t work in 2012 so it would be stronger in 2016. Sorry. Kidding! He didn’t say that.”

Rep. David Curson (D-MI) was sworn-in last week to complete the remainder of former Rep. Thad McCotter’s (R-MI) term — but he’ll only be there until the end of the year, the AP reports.

“He was one of four members of the House sworn in this past week to fill a partial term, but he’s the only one who didn’t win a full, two-year term to go with the temporary gig. In January, he’ll drive his truck home and be replaced by Republican Rep.-elect Kerry Bentivolio, whom Curson beat out for the partial term.”

Marc Ambinder clarifies some myths that the political elite has been building in the aftermath of the presidential election.

“I’m tired now of the elections. People spoke. Move
on, get on with it. I want to do other things and not to be ugly.”

— Barbara Bush, quoted by Reuters.

Ben Smith: “There appears to be no Romney Republicanism to propagate. No Romney strategy to emulate. No Romney technology to ape. No generation shaped by his failed effort. And no Romney infrastructure to inherit, though he may still be asked to write and bundle quite a few checks…”

“Romney is being erased with record speed from his party’s books for three reasons. First, many Republicans backed him because they thought he had a good chance of winning; that appeal, obviously, is gone. Second, Romney had shallow roots, and few friends, in the national Republican Party. And those shallow roots have allowed Republicans to give him a new role: As a sort of bad partisan bank, freighted with all the generational positions and postures that they are looking to dump.”

The Week: Why Republicans want Mitt Romney to take a hike.

Doyle McManus: “It’s not surprising that House conservatives see things their own way. Even if the country as a whole voted for President Obama this month, conservative House members did just fine in their own districts … Of 216 House Republicans who ran for reelection, only 14 were defeated, a mortality rate of just over 6%. Members of the tea party caucus did even better than that; only about 5% were defeated.”

“Which Republicans lost their seats? Moderates and moderate conservatives, disproportionately. Among the incumbents who ran for reelection, 48 were members of a group called the Republican Main Street Partnership, nonradical conservatives who sometimes call themselves ‘center right.’ Seven of those 48 lost their seats — a mortality rate of 15%, more than twice as high as Republicans in general. When you add retirements and other departures, more than a dozen moderate conservatives won’t be coming back next year. Moderate Republicans were an endangered species in Congress even before this year’s election. Now they’re even closer to extinction.”

The Palm Beach Post reports a canvassing board decided to
recount all 37,379 ballots from early voting in the tight congressional
race between Rep. Allen West (R-FL) and Patrick
Murphy (D) after elections officials revealed that 306 ballots had gone uncounted.

Rick Hasen: “Just imagine if the presidential race hinged on Florida.  How many
more stories of missing and miscounted ballots would have emerged
(beyond the ones we’ve already heard about) if the fate of the
presidency hinged on the outcome.”

Newt Gingrich told Evan Smith that Mitt Romney’s explanation of why he lost the election — by giving “gifts” to minorities and young people — was “insulting and profoundly wrong.”

Said Gingrich: “He had enough billionaire supporters that if buying the electorate was the key, he could have got all of his super PAC friends together and said, ‘Don’t buy ads, give gifts.'”

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