Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) “will announce this morning that he’s dropping plans to run for a third term in 2014, a decision certain to set off an avalanche of Republican candidates who will seek to replace him,” the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

“At least two GOP House members from Georgia, Paul Broun of Athens and
Tom Price of Roswell, have been contemplating primary challenges to
Chambliss, who has been criticized for participating in a bipartisan
effort to broker a deal to address a $16 trillion federal deficit.”

Former RNC Chairman Haley Barbour (R) said that “stupid” and “offensive” comments made by one candidate can have a negative affect on others in the same political party, Politico reports.

Said Barbour: “The comments they made were stupid comments, offensive comments and in today’s world when a candidate in one state says something, the negative effect of that can spill over to other candidates.”

Former Mitt Romney strategist Stuart Stevens sent a letter to the Washington Post asking them to reconsider a “Four-Pinocchio” ruling for Romney’s ad on Chrysler and China, after Chrysler announced that it would begin building Jeep models in China.

Write Stevens: “I would hope that you would take another look at this and stress test it for accuracy away from the heat of a campaign. I’ve been doing campaigns and writing about campaigns for some time and I believe that the ad and Romney’s statement were completely accurate, unusually so by any standards.”

The verdict: “We reaffirm our earlier ruling of Four Pinocchios.”

“Romney is becoming more of an admired figure and no one gets any
applause for punching him. However, there is no Romney faction or Romney wing of the GOP
that is keeping the flame alive. No one tailors their policies because
it was what Romney supported in the 2012 campaign.”

— GOP strategist Ed Rogers, quoted by the Washington Post.

“Republicans in Virginia and a handful of other battleground states are pushing for far-reaching changes to the electoral college in an attempt to counter recent success by Democrats,” the Washington Post reports.

“In the vast majority of states, the presidential candidate who wins receives all of that state’s electoral votes. The proposed changes would instead apportion electoral votes by congressional district, a setup far more favorable to Republicans. Under such a system in Virginia, for instance, President Obama would have claimed four of the state’s 13 electoral votes in the 2012 election, rather than all of them.”

“No state is moving quicker than Virginia, where state senators are likely to vote on the plan as soon as next week. If successful, Virginia would become the third state to adopt the congressional district system, after Nebraska and Maine.”

Nate Cohn: “But the GOP’s effort in Virginia, if it’s passed, is more cynical than
effective: Virginia is not one of the states where Republicans can
pursue this kind of electoral policy and reap big gains.”

Remember the analysis that found that long lines cost nearly 50,000 votes in Central Florida? Well, the Orlando Sentinel reports that if you extend that to the whole state, it’s more than 201,000.

“Analyzing data compiled by the Orlando Sentinel, Ohio State University professor Theodore Allen estimated last week that at least 201,000 voters likely gave up in frustration on Nov. 6, based on research Allen has been doing on voter behavior. His preliminary conclusion was based on the Sentinel’s analysis of voter patterns and precinct-closing times in Florida’s 25 largest counties, home to 86 percent of the state’s 11.9 million registered voters.”

Gallup: “During his fourth year in office, an average of 86% of Democrats and 10% of Republicans approved of the job Barack Obama did as president. That 76-percentage-point gap ties George W. Bush’s fourth year as the most polarized years in Gallup records.”

Suzi Parker: “Remember how Hillary Rodham Clinton’s critics said she faked her December stomach illness, which included a concussion and a subsequent blood clot, because she was scared to face scrutiny from Congress? As the kids say, whatevs. Hillary conquered Capitol Hill on Wednesday. She looked anything but frightened … Naturally, the right-wing media went into overdrive about Hillary not caring about four dead Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, because she said, ‘What difference, at this point, does it make?’ Of course, they must have missed her earlier testimony when her voice cracked with emotion as she described meeting the caskets at Andrews Air Force Base, President Obama by her side.”

“For Hillary, the testimony was a triumphant capstone on her term as the chief U.S. diplomat. If Hillary had not dealt with the Benghazi affair before she left office, she could have been viewed as a failure and a weakling. Instead, she came blazing onto Capitol Hill in true Hillary style, concluding the Libya drama on her terms and exiting the Washington stage to regroup for her next adventure — a new book, global speeches or a presidential run.”

The Week: Will Clinton’s testimony come back to haunt her?