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).

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.

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.

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 …

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 …

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 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.

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 last week, CNN has learned.  —  The incident raises fresh concerns within the Obama administration about Iranian military aggression in crucial Gulf oil shipping lanes.

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 …

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.”

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 …

¡Estimados Republicanos!  —  The GOP's immigration and Hispanic debacles.  —  In 2004, George W. Bush—an immigration-friendly Republican who spoke semi-passable Spanish—won re-election with about 40% of the Hispanic vote.  This year, immigration hardliner Mitt Romney got about 27% …

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.

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.

Ron Paul: Election shows U.S. ‘far gone’  —  Rep. Ron Paul, whose maverick presidential bids shook the GOP, said in the wake of this week's elections that the country has already veered over the fiscal cliff and he sees no chance of righting ship in a country where too many people are dependent on government.

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 …

Warmer still: Extreme climate predictions appear most accurate, report says  —  NOAA/REUTERS - Hurricane Sandy is seen churning northwards in this NOAA handout satellite image taken on October 25, 2012.  According to climate scientists, the world could be in for a devastating increase …

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 …

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 …

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) …

With state representive win, Laughton state's first openly transgender lawmaker  —  NASHUA - Overshadowed by the wave of historic results that emerged from Tuesday's election, including women taking the governor's office as well as two congressional seats and making New Hampshire the first state …