“If another Republican man says anything about rape other than it is a
horrific, violent crime, I want to personally cut out his tongue. The
college-age daughters of many of my friends voted for Obama because they
were completely turned off by Neanderthal comments like the suggestion
of ‘legitimate rape.'”

— Former Bush adviser Karen Hughes, quoted by Politico.

New York Times: “Christian conservatives, for more than two decades a pivotal force in American politics, are grappling with Election Day results that repudiated their influence and suggested that the cultural tide — especially on gay issues — has shifted against them. They are reeling not only from the loss of the presidency, but from what many of them see as a rejection of their agenda. They lost fights against same-sex marriage in all four states where it was on the ballot, and saw anti-abortion-rights Senate candidates defeated and two states vote to legalize marijuana for recreational use.”

“The election results are just one indication of larger trends in American religion that Christian conservatives are still digesting… Americans who have no religious affiliation — pollsters call them the ‘nones’ — are now about one-fifth of the population over all… The younger generation is even less religious: about one-third of Americans ages 18 to 22 say they are either atheists, agnostics or nothing in particular. Americans who are secular are far more likely to vote for liberal candidates and for same-sex marriage. Seventy percent of those who said they had no religion voted for Mr. Obama…”

“We would rather lose with you than win with anyone else.”

— Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades, quoted by ABC News, talking to Mitt and Ann Romney several days after the election.

Politico: “Democrats had argued for months before the election that Republican polling was screening out voters who would ultimately turn up to support Obama. In fact, Obama advisers said, if you applied a tighter likely voter screen to Democratic polling — counting only the very likeliest voters as part of the electorate — you could come up with results similar to what the GOP was looking at.”

“By assuming that only the most enthusiastic voters would actually show up, Republicans greatly overestimated their national position. Operatives and activists rejected public polling data that showed substantially more voters identifying themselves as Democrats in states like Ohio and Virginia, giving Republicans an unwarranted sense of confidence that crumbled last Tuesday.”

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) told his GOP members on a conference call that their party lost the elections, badly, “and while Republicans would still control the House and would continue to staunchly oppose tax rate increases as Congress grapples with the impending fiscal battle, they had to avoid the nasty showdowns that marked so much of the last two years,” the New York Times reports.

“Members on the call, subdued and dark, murmured words of support — even a few who had been a thorn in the speaker’s side for much of this Congress.”

Despite a terrible showing on Election Day, Karl Rove believes that American Crossroads and its more secretive issue-advocacy arm, Crossroads GPS — which allows donors to remain anonymous — are here to stay, the Washington Post reports.

“Rove is pondering new missions for Crossroads to address weaknesses laid bare by the GOP’s back-to-back failures to win the White House and the fact that the party fell short when expected to win back the Senate.”

“Where until now it battled only in general elections and against Democrats, Crossroads is considering whether to start picking sides in Republican primaries. The idea would be to boost the candidate it deems most electable and avoid nominating the kind of flawed and extreme ones who cost the party what should otherwise have been easy Senate wins in Florida, Missouri and Indiana.”

Sasha Issenberg: “It is no coincidence that in both 2004 and 2012 the engines of radical innovation were the campaigns of incumbent presidents. We tend to underappreciate how radically different a presidential re-election is from any other enterprise in American political life. It is the rare chance for candidates to disrupt the cycle of short-term, election-year priorities and invest in their own research agendas instead of being forced to follow a consultant-driven marketplace.”

White House officials suggest Jon Huntsman (R), the former Utah governor, Obama’s ambassador to China and Republican presidential candidate, might be a candidate for Secretary of State, the AP reports.

“Huntsman is still widely respected by the administration even if he’d hoped to unseat Obama. Choosing Huntsman would allow the president to claim bipartisanship while putting an Asia expert in the job at a time when the U.S. is focusing more attention on the world’s most populous continent.”

KSL-TV: “The speculation caught many political observers off guard. Some told us
that taking another job in the Obama administration might make it hard,
if not impossible, for him to run as a Republican again for the White
House.”

Rep. Allen West (R-FL) refused to concede after the state concluded that challenger Patrick Murphy (D) held a lead beyond the margin needed for an automatic recount, the AP reports.

West was elected in 2010 on a wave of tea party support and has since had a constant string of headline-grabbing statements, from calling congressional Democrats communists to saying President Obama, Rep. Nancy Pelosi and others should “get the hell out of the United States.”

Paul Begala: “Our goal was to take Romney’s greatest strength–his business record–and make it a weakness. We were given a road map by none other than the late, great Ted Kennedy. As the 2008 election was approaching, I paid the senator a visit. I thought Romney might be the GOP nominee, and Kennedy gave me a tutorial on how to beat him. Don’t underestimate Romney, Kennedy said. He’s smart and resourceful and will say anything, take any position. Kennedy recounted how his campaign team tracked down employees of companies that had been shut down after being bought by Bain Capital. Shamelessly copying Kennedy’s plan, we interviewed dozens of laid-off ­middle-class working people. Their stories were emblematic of the collapse of the middle class: factories closed, health benefits canceled, lives ruined.”

“My old friend, former Georgia governor and senator Zell Miller, taught me that ‘a hit dog barks,’ but Romney remained silent. I am still amazed that Romney did not respond. He allowed our little, underfunded super PAC to define him as Gordon Gekko. Without his business record, Romney was left with nothing but his charm.”

Soon after Mitt Romney conceded the presidential election, more than
55,025 Facebook users have “unliked” Romney, at a rate of about
847 an hour, according to Mashable. 

President Obama has been declared the winner of Florida in the presidential election, the Associated Press reports.

The final Electoral College tally is Obama 332, Romney 206.

The latest nationwide popular vote tally is Obama 50.6%, Romney 47.9%.