Romney campaign: We lost Florida  —  President Obama will win Florida when all votes are counted, judging from the makeup of the ballots still outstanding from heavily Democratic counties.  —  MCAPUTO@MIAMIHERALD.COM  —  Though votes are still being tallied, President Obama is all but assured …

Vote was astronomical for Obama in some Philadelphia wards  —  Some Philadelphia neighborhoods outdid themselves in Tuesday's presidential election.  —  In a city where President Obama received more than 85 percent of the votes, in some places he received almost every one.

Obama's Holding the Cards  —  At first glance, the results of the 2012 election look like a return to the status quo: President Obama was reelected, Democrats retained the Senate, and Republicans held on to the House.  But don't be fooled.  The political dynamic of the next four years …

Rove: Obama won ‘by suppressing the vote’  —  GOP strategist Karl Rove went on Fox News today to argue that President Barack Obama “succeeded by suppressing the vote” — an argument that directly contradicts the conventional wisdom that Romney failed to appeal to non-white and female voters.

The Unmitigated Disaster Known As Project ORCA  —  What is Project Orca?  Well, this is what they told us: … Pretty much everything in that sentence is false.  The “massive undertaking” is true, however.  It would take a lot of planning, training and coordination to be done successfully (oh, we'll get to that in a second).

Obama's Congrats Caller: Christie  —  President Barack Obama and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie look at storm damage along the coast of New Jersey from Marine One, on Oct. 31, 2012.  —  Chris Christie, who last year dashed many Republicans' hopes by turning down pleas to challenge President Barack Obama …

The last days of Romneyland  —  BOSTON — From the moment Mitt Romney stepped off stage Tuesday night, having just delivered a brief concession speech he wrote only that evening, the massive infrastructure surrounding his campaign quickly began to disassemble itself.

Adviser: Romney “shellshocked” by loss  —  Mitt Romney's campaign got its first hint something was wrong on the afternoon of Election Day, when state campaign workers on the ground began reporting huge turnout in areas favorable to President Obama: northeastern Ohio, northern Virginia, central Florida and Miami-Dade.

The Case of the Missing White Voters  —  One of the more intriguing narratives for election 2012 was proposed by political scientist Brendan Nyhan fairly early on: that it was “Bizarro 2004.”  The parallels to that year certainly were eerie: An incumbent adored by his base …

Boehner Exclusive: Raising Tax Rates ‘Unacceptable’ but Will Put New Revenue on Table  —  Raising tax rates is “unacceptable” to House Speaker John Boehner as he prepares to open negotiations on the looming “fiscal cliff” with the president and congressional Democrats, he told “World News” …

FIRST ON CNN: Iranian jets fire on U.S. drone  —  Two Iranian Su-25 fighter jets fired on an unarmed U.S. Air Force Predator drone in the Persian Gulf on November 1, the Pentagon disclosed on Thursday.  —  The incident, reported first by CNN, raised fresh concerns within the Obama administration …

How the Secret Service Said Goodbye to Mitt Romney  —  At some point, early Wednesday morning, when Gov. Mitt Romney and family were tucked into bed, a quiet call went out on the radio channel used by his Secret Service agents: “Javelin, Jockey details, all posts, discontinue.”

How Race Slipped Away From Romney  —  BOSTON—Mitt Romney is one of the wealthiest men ever to run for president.  And yet the lack of money earlier this year stalled his campaign, and he never really recovered.  —  The GOP nominee emerged late last spring from a long and bruising Republican primary season …

As Nation and Parties Change, Republicans Are at an Electoral College Disadvantage  —  Two more presidential elections, 2016 and 2020, will be contested under the current Electoral College configuration, which gave Barack Obama a second term on Tuesday.  This year's results suggest …

Vegas Employer: Obama Won, So I Fired 22 Employees  —  LAS VEGAS (CBS Las Vegas) — A Las Vegas business owner with 114 employees fired 22 workers today, apparently as a direct result of President Obama's re-election.  —  “David” (he asked to remain anonymous for obvious reasons) …

We Should Probably All Calm Down a Bit  —  I am going to be a killjoy tonight.  I have two things to say:  — Liberals, you should rein in the triumphalism.  Obama won a narrow 51-49 percent victory and the composition of Congress changed only slightly.

Federal Judge on Ohio's Ballot Order: ‘Democracy Dies in the Dark’  —  There are hundreds of thousands of ballots left to count in Ohio — and a federal judge is angry about how the secretary of state there plans to count them.  —  Reuters  —  On the day after Election Day …

Exclusive: Clinton leads in Iowa '16 - poll  —  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would start out as a dominant favorite in the 2016 Iowa caucuses if she chooses to run for president, a new survey from Public Policy Polling finds.  —  The PPP poll, which was shared exclusively with POLITICO …

Jared Loughner sentenced to life in Tucson mass shooting  —  Jared Lee Loughner, who shot former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in the head, killed six and wounded 12 others in a 2011 Tucson rampage, was sentenced to life in prison without parole after listening to some of his victims berate him for damaging their lives.

Mitt Romney planned Boston Harbor fireworks show that was scotched by election loss  —  Mitt Romney had planned to celebrate his election as the nation's 45th president with an eight-minute fireworks display over Boston Harbor.  —  The same company that does some of the illuminations …

Obama gets emotional talking to campaign staff  —  (CNN) - Video of President Barack Obama's visit Wednesday to his campaign headquarters in Chicago shows the newly re-elected commander in chief becoming emotional while heralding the hard work of his young staffers.

Democrat-Boycotting Libertarian Eric Dondero on Whether He Would Let a Democrat Drown  —  Republicans around the country are responding to President Obama's reelection in a variety of ways — among them: anger, depression, finger-pointing.  But nobody had the same reaction as Eric Dondero …

Bitterfest 2012  —  Four years ago, at just this time, I wrote a column headed “Bitterfest '08.”  I pledged a couple of weeks ago that I would not write such a column this year.  I pledged to myself, I mean.  I said, “If Romney loses, I'm not going to write another Bitterfest column.