It's all up to the voters now.

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A single tear rolls down the president's cheek during his final campaign appearance in Des Moines, Iowa.

Via: @dougmillsnyt

Despite some conservative warnings, police in major cities say they see no threat of violence come Tuesday night.

The crowd on November 4, 2008, in Chicago's Grant Park after Barack Obama won the election.

Image by Chris McGrath / Getty Images

Officials at law enforcement agencies across the country Monday dismissed warnings on conservative blogs that President Barack Obama’s supporters would resort to violence if he lost the election.

In the final hours of the election, a some conservative bloggers have amassed what they consider growing evidence — mostly tweets sent by young, black people — that Obama supporters will unleash a wave of violence not seen since the OJ Simpson trials if Mitt Romney comes out on top Tuesday.

Last Friday, the aggregation site Twitchy posted a cache of tweets which threatened to protest a Romney win — "If Romney wins, we riot," reads one from Twitter user @_Swaggerless.

In their post on the tweets, Twitchy added a note warning that "hundreds more were posted prior to today — all of them ignored by a complacent, biased mainstream media." And even if the threats were made in jest, they said, "our advice: be prepared."

On the conservative Red State Report — in a post titled "PSA for surviving Election Night Riots" — blogger Matthew Jerome predicted "mass riots" if Obama loses and, if he wins, "another celebration like when OJ Simpson was found not guilty."

But police department officials in Washington D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and San Francisco told BuzzFeed Monday night that they had no information that would indicate a need for concern.

"We're not preparing for civil unrest or rioting or disobedience in the streets," said Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the Baltimore Police Department. "It's not a situation where we'd have to cancel all leave. Our daily deployment will be enough resources to manage."

Officer Cleon Joseph, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department, said "we are aware that it will be election night," but added that officers will operate under "normal patrols."

The San Francisco Sheriff's Department indicated that they were more concerned with making sure ballots were secure — their main charge on election day — than with riot threats. "We secure the ballots when the precincts close and bring them back to the place where they're counted," said spokeswoman Susan Fahey. "

Police in the District of Columbia also said they don’t expect any problems election night.

“The Metropolitan Police Department continuously monitors events locally and nationally in order to maintain awareness of situations that may impact the District of Columbia. Although we don't anticipate any issues, we have a plan in place and we are prepared for election night,” said Gwendolyn Crump, the director of the Office of Communications for the Metropolitan Police Department.

And Crump should know: Washington is, after all, a majority black city that was affectionately dubbed Chocolate City in the 1970s by musician George Clinton.

To be sure, the jubilant atmosphere that overtook the city after the 2008 election was called for Obama may also be equally unlikely this year. Back then, tens of thousands of residents poured into the streets to celebrate the historic election of the nation’s first black president.

The historic U Street corridor, known as the Black Broadway, became a five block long block party packed with a strange mix of 20-something hipsters, church ladies, police, pimps and college students.

And while Obama’s support in D.C. remains extraordinarily high, enthusiasm in the run-up to this year’s election has been nowhere near as high, and a second term victory would not have the same magical quality that Obama’s first win had.

But Guglielmi in Baltimore added that whenever the city is hosting a special event — whether an election or not — the city's "intel section works up a write-up or assessment," he said. "We have a pretty robust intelligence section, and there's no indication at this point that there's going to be any disobedience."

Spokespersons for more cities — Cleveland, Columbus, Miami, Detroit, and Houston — told The Hill last month that they likewise did not anticipate rioting.

In Chicago, where President Obama will be speaking on election night, there may be increased security at the McCormick Place convention center, the site of his campaign's watch party. Citing unnamed "police sources," the Chicago Tribune reported the Chicago Police Department had "canceled days off for officers, ordered plainclothes cops into uniform and is scheduling 12-hour shifts for Election Day."

But a Chicago Police Department spokesman refused Monday night to confirm they had any such plans.

“She sees the constellation of possibilities and she lifts our gaze for this state and for this nation,” says Markey.

BOSTON — Elizabeth Warren spent the last night before election day starring at a pair of rallies in Boston and its environs and appearing as powerful— and as likely to win Tuesday — as she has yet. But remnants of the inexperienced first-time candidate remain, and the mood among Massachusett's Democratic left is nervous and electric, the memory of failed 2010 candidate Martha Coakley still fresh.

Warren appeared with Congressman Ed Markey and a handful of local elected officials in the harshly lit gym of Framingham High School, west of Boston, late Monday afternoon. The gym was about three quarters full, and a local band called the Scooby Snacks played classic rock covers as the crowd, which skewed older and white, waited for Warren to arrive.

Tom Conroy, a candidate for state representative, brought back the specter of the Coakley loss to start things off.

"We are now supporting a candidate that has fired up the Democratic party in this state and got us working hard again!" Conroy said, alluding to what was seen as the failure of the Democrats to take Brown seriously as a threat in 2010.

Markey, a Massachusetts political stalwart who's represented the 7th congressional district since 1976, waxed poetic about the party's star candidate this year.

"When Elizabeth Warren looks at you on this crisp clear New England night, she sees the constellation of possibilities and she lifts our gaze for this state and for this nation," Markey said. "And now the whole world is looking at us, here, in Massachusetts."

The symbolic weight of Warren's candidacy doesn't seem to be lost on her. Warren seemed almost nervous in Framingham, peppering her speech with "You bet" and "That's right," and ending a bit shakily, bumping into her podium as she stepped down to stand with Markey.

The stakes are high not just for Warren, but for the Democratic majority in the Senate — a fact that has become a centerpiece of her campaign.

"Here we are," Warren said. "It all comes down to tomorrow. This is a race about whose side you stand on." More than one speaker alluded to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConell, and Markey even brought up Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe, who was a bogeyman of the first debate Warren had with Brown.

Polls show that Warren and Brown are locked in a tight race, with a small edge for Warren, who's been running consistent but small leads of a few points since the summer (except for a recent Boston Herald poll that had Brown one point ahead). The race has been marked by toxic attacks on both sides, incredible spending figures despite a ban on third-party radio and TV advertisements, and unusual national interest for a state race.

The toxicity has calmed since its apex earlier in the fall and over the summer, but it is still the subtext of this campaign. At Warren's final rally on Monday, a Harry Truman Society event on a street corner in the Boston neighborhood of West Roxbury, the mostly labor crowd booed when a Republican candidate for governor's council briefly addressed the crowd. (They cheered, less briefly, when he said he had recently joined the Teamsters).

Supporters were thick on the ground with Warren signs, and most also had a small sign in the shape of a Stop sign that read "Scott: The Truck Stops Here," a reference to Brown's trademark pickup truck. Large men in union t-shirts and with union signs dominated the crowd, joined by Boston liberals in barn coats and arty glasses; Warren's coalition.

Ed Kelly, the chief of the Massachusetts Firefighters Union, introduced Warren after mocking Brown for touting his union membership (Brown is a member of the Screen Actors Guild).

"It's the Screen Actors Guild, and he's been acting like he cares about you for two and a half years, and I'm not smoking that anymore," Kelly said.

Warren ran up to the podium with her hands in the air, like a boxer, as the crowd chanted, "Warren! Warren!"

"This is what it's all about," Warren said. "This is it. This is it. Thank you."

"Tomorrow is when we speak here in Massachusetts with a strong voice," Warren said, her own voice sounding slightly hoarse. Warren spoke for about five minutes, mainly sticking to her stump speech lines about Brown's voting record, and left the stage. She'll hold her election night party at Copley Plaza; Brown will hold his at the Park Plaza Hotel, also in downtown Boston.

Two Warren campaign volunteers from Quincy, 50-somethings Kate Whooley and Maureen Crimmins, arrived at the rally just as Warren was leaving, to their disappointment. Neither of the women, involved as they have been in the day-to-day of volunteering for Warren, were totally confident of a win.

"I've been working for many months on her campaign," Whooley said. "I feel optimistic but it's felt neck-and-neck much of the way."

"It's distressing to see the number of Obama voters who are going to vote for Brown, that makes no sense to me," Crimmins said, though she guessed that Warren would eke out a close win despite Brown's bipartisan appeal. "We know a lot of people like that."

But like other Warren faithful, they've felt a thrill just being a part of it. "The canvassing has been steady, and the phone-calling — just a steady steady group of people," Whooley said. "It felt good."

Obama takes credit for the BCS playoff, Romney takes credit for the Patriots Super Bowl wins — and says “sport.” Their final interviews before polls open.

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Separate but equal. But the politics are complicated: Conservatives wanted the change, and black legislators opposed it.

Alabama's Amendment 4 would have removed racist 1956 sections of Alabama's Constitution, referring to a poll tax and segregating the schools.

Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed as creating or recognizing any right to education or training at public expense, nor as limiting the authority and duty of the legislature, in furthering or providing for education, to require or impose conditions or procedures deemed necessary to the preservation of peace and order.

Mitt Romney carried Alabama Tuesday with 61% of the state's vote, and 84% of its white vote, and the failure of Amendment 4 put in relief some of the state's continuing racial tensions.

But while the vote has drawn attention in, particularly, the European press, the politics were complicated: The conservatives who backed the bill sought to use it to ensure that state courts could not force spending on schools, as they have elsewhere, a matter that is currently in the state's courts. And the liberals — led by the teachers union — who opposed it argued that the amendment was a kind of Trojan horse really aimed at "hurting public education.

Preliminary results showed the amendment losing handily, with about 63% of voters opposing it.

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Over a year after “the DM heard round the world.” A plea for Hurricane Sandy support in his old district.

What is Moot doing on the Patriot Voices page?

Source: betabeat.com

Moot, the founder of anarchic Web forum 4Chan, is pictured in a section of the website for former presidential candidate Rick Santorum's Patriot Voices group, Betabeat noticed on Wednesday.

The photo matches the one on Moot's (real name: Chris Poole) Wikipedia page.

Spokespeople for Santorum didn't immediately return BuzzFeed's request for clarification.

Update: Moot emails to say he doesn't know how he got there either:

Maybe a user created a profile using my Wikipedia photo as the profile pic, or a designer/intern someone working on the site thought it would be funny. Or I look like a wholesome Tea Partier. Who knows.

The right gives no ground after a big defeat. A new video from Heritage Action for America.

Source: youtube.com

Watch them grow up before your eyes.

August 2004.

Source: Getty Images

November 2004.

Source: Getty Images

November 2004.

Source: Getty Images

January 2005.

Source: Getty Images

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With a record share of Latinos supporting Obama, Republicans begin their long look in the mirror. “There was nothing Romney could say to win the Latino vote,” says Medina.

Image by Jason Reed / Reuters

Latino leaders said on a press call Wednesday morning that the decisive factor in President Obama's reelection was the Latino vote. Latino Decisions' election night polling indicates that 75% of Latinos voted for President Obama and 23% voted for Mitt Romney.

"For the first time in American history," said Gary Segura, professor at Stanford University and founder of Latino Decisions, "the Latino vote can be said to be decisive. If the Latino vote had been split equally, Obama would have lost the popular vote."

According to the report by Latino Decisions, Obama's share of the Latino vote would exceed the record set by Bill Clinton in the 1996 election, when he received 72% of support from Latinos.

A projected 12.2 million Latinos participated in this election, according to leaders on the call. In 2008, a record number of 9.7 million participated.

"The Latino giant is wide-awake, cranky, and it's taking names," said Eliseo Medina, a leader of the labor union SEIU. "Yesterday Latinos were the key vote in electing a president, and now we are a part of history."

"President Obama won Latino support the old-fashioned way — by supporting comprehensive immigration reform," added Medina. "Romney really screwed up on the immigration issue. He sealed his fate in the primaries."

Citing Romney's support of the Arizona immigration laws, as well as his pledge on the trail that he would veto the DREAM Act, Medina said, "We're not stupid…There was nothing Romney could say to win the Latino vote."

The data from Latino Decisions shows the vote played a role in tipping key swing states — particularly Colorado, where 87% of Latinos voted for Obama — and in tight Senate races. Their data shows 86% of Latinos in Massachusetts supporting Elizabeth Warren over Scott Brown.

The 113th Congress will also have the largest number of Latinos in office — 28 House seats and three Senate seats. Winning handily in Texas Tuesday night, Republican candidate Ted Cruz becomes the third Latino senator, joining Marco Rubio and Bob Menendez.

On this issue of immigration, there needs to be "leadership from Republicans, particularly in the Senate," said Frank Sharry, executive director of the group America's Voice. "The Republicans need to sue for peace on the immigration issue. It's become a political imperative. The Republicans will either come to the table or pay a price for not doing so."

After Marco Rubio rejects offer to head National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, Kansas freshman finds himself in the mix.

Image by Chris Maddaloni/CQ Roll Call / Getty Images

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Sen. Marco Rubio's rebuff of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee chairmanship has injected new life into a dormant leadership race, sparking speculation that Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran could make a play for the plum post.

Earlier this year, Moran had mounted a campaign for the NRSC slot, which is being vacated by Sen. John Cornyn. But when leadership appeared to settle on Rubio, his bid petered out, GOP aides said.

Now, however, with Rubio having declined Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's offer of the job, Moran could find himself in contention, and with clear backing from outside conservatives.

"McConnell had been working Rubio over for a long time," said a veteran operative with knowledge of the discussions. "If it wasn't Rubio, it would fall to Moran."

There have also been efforts to recruit Sen. Rob Portman, of Ohio, Politico reported Wednesday, but Portman has so far been mum on his intentions.

Sen. Roy Blunt, of Missouri, and Sen. Bob Corker, of Tennessee, had also been mentioned as potential successors to Cornyn for the 2014 midterm election cycle — but both have previously indicated that they would not be interested in taking the top slot.

The House Democrats move their résumé bank online.

Staff assistant Kathleen Llewellyn (second left) of Senate Budget Committee hands out copies of the president’s FY2013 budget request to congressional staff, Feb. 13, 2012, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. The Obama Administration has released the details of its FY2013 budget request.

Image by Alex Wong / Getty Images

WASHINGTON, DC — With a fresh batch of lawmakers newly elected and preparing to head to Capitol Hill to continue Congress' recent trend of inaction, House Democrats are looking for a few good staffers.

And, they announced Wednesday, they will make the process of applying for a low-paying, thankless job a touch easier by moving the résumé process online.

"The résumé bank launched today will allow House Democrats to improve our hiring process and further strengthen our staff diversity," House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer said in a statement. "It advances our commitment to openness, transparency, and equal opportunity by creating a new way for any citizen to submit a résumé that will be shared with all House Democratic offices, including the large incoming freshmen class."

Those seeking accolades from the American people need not apply: Last month, Congress' approval rating topped 20% for the first time in more than a year.

These politicians will be out of work in January.

Republican Florida Congressman David Rivera

Source: images.politico.com  /  via: miamiherald.com

Republican Florida Congressman Allen West

Source: images.politico.com

Democratic New York Congresswomen Kathy Hochul

Source: images.politico.com

Democratic California Congressman Pete Stark

Source: menwithfoilhats.com

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The inside story of how Mitt Romney's courtship of Donald Trump became a metaphor for his whole campaign.

Romney, accepting the endorsement of Trump on Feb. 2 in Las Vegas.

Image by Steve Marcus / Reuters

BOSTON — The Romney campaign obituaries that will litter the Internet over the coming days and weeks are bound to offer varied causes of death: tactical mistakes, candidate gaffes, shifting demographics, or some poisonous mix of bad luck and blunders.

But perhaps the campaign's most fatal mistake was its tortured, 16-month quest to win the affection of rank-and-file conservatives via their most boisterous mouthpiece — at the expense of almost everything else.

At the outset of 2012, many of Mitt Romney's confidantes, friends, and advisers were hopeful that the political climate would let him play to his strengths as a successful businessman and be himself. He had wasted a grueling 2008 presidential bid role-playing as a right-wing culture warrior, a part that never quite suited him, in the eyes of many of his allies.

"I wasn't in the room when they decided that Mitt was going to have to be more conservative than [Rudy] Giuliani and John McCain in order to win the primary, but I would have advised against it," said one longtime friend and adviser to Romney in the spring 2011. "Those social issues weren't his strong suit, and I think some people thought he was a phony... But now Republicans, and people in general, want someone who understands the economy, and that's the campaign he will get to run."

And he did get to run that campaign — but not until the last four weeks of the election.

Before that, he was consumed by a desperate bid to make Republicans like him; chasing Joe Biden's gaffes, courting conservative blogs, and doling out hot dogs at NASCAR races. It was a preoccupation that bordered on obsession, and it ate up time before Romney could finally find his footing as a candidate, delivering a sharp debate performance, pivoting to the political center, and campaigning on the economy.

Some Republicans assign blame to a campaign high command devoid of movement conservatives, which was fundamentally disconnected with the party's base. Others attribute the overlong courting of conservatives to insecurity on the candidate's part.

But if there was one campaign subplot that best illustrated Romney's tortured relationship with the base, it was the curious case of Donald Trump.

Image by Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

In spring 2011, Trump had floated the idea of his own presidential run, with his main platform plank having to do with exposing President Obama's fraudulent citizenship. His bombastic birtherism — and the relentless media attention it attracted — was enough to propel him to the top of some early Republican primary polls. He ultimately decided not to run, but reserved the right to endorse.

Trump's appeal to the Republican base was undeniable, and, to many on Romney's staff, utterly perplexing. Among the savvy sophisticates who populated the campaign headquarters in Boston, Trump was viewed as a joke and a blowhard — an outrageous figure whose fixation on Obama's birth certificate was, at once, bizarre and off-putting, according to campaign sources.

But he was also popular among the very voters Romney was most concerned about winning over. And the candidate's aides believed — perhaps naively — that if they could win his endorsement, they might be able to win the hearts of his many conservative fans.

"He played very well with blue-collar-type Republicans, and the campaign saw that," said one source in Trump's camp. "If you have no education, and you work with your hands, you like him. It's like, 'Wow, if I was rich, that's how I would live!' The girls, the cars, the fancy suits. His ostentatiousness is appealing to them."

When the campaign decided to go for it, they went all out. Staffers and surrogates lobbied their contacts in Trump's office, and senior campaign strategist Stuart Stevens called a person close to the Celebrity Apprentice star and asked what they could do to win him over.

The friend's advice: "Flattery goes a long way with Mr. Trump."

And so, in September 2011, the candidate himself paid a visit to Trump Towers in New York City. Other GOP contenders had already made the journey to kiss The Donald's ring — including Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Perry — but Romney was considered the most serious candidate at that point. Rather than hold a big press conference outside the building like others did, Romney slipped in and out of a back door, dodging the photographers lurking nearby.

No one knows what was said behind those closed doors — only Romney and Trump were present — but whatever it was, the candidate had "charmed" him, according to a source who spoke to Trump afterward. The source added that Trump had seriously considered backing Perry, but Romney's meeting put him over the edge.

"I think it's a rich-guy thing," Trump's friend told BuzzFeed.

By the time the deal was finally sealed, several of the campaign staffers in Boston had grown so sick of Trump's demands that they refused to deal with him anymore.

The task of keeping him happy, then, fell mainly to campaign press secretary Andrea Saul, a natural schmoozer with a disarming Georgia accent and an inordinate tolerance for BS. Trump's entourage called campaign headquarters constantly, eagerly passing along strategy ideas from their boss, and the calls were always patched through to Saul's office. Her desk became littered with Trump aides' business cards, and post-it notes reminding her to call them back. (Saul did not respond to BuzzFeed's request for comment.)

The day of Trump's official endorsement came February 2, just after Romney beat back another conservative primary rival — this time, Newt Gingrich — by carpet-bombing Florida with attack ads. The campaign was riding high, hoping against hope that the Trump endorsement would help them rally Republicans behind his candidacy so he could begin focusing on the general election.

As part of their negotiations, the Romney campaign had agreed to announce the endorsement with a press conference held at Trump's Las Vegas hotel. The Donald was having the time of his life, roaming around the lobby and holding not one, but three separate press gaggles. He bragged about the lengths to which the campaign had gone to court him, and he made a point of plugging his hotel.

"You can see why it's number one in Nevada!" he declared.

Campaign aides could be seen rolling their eyes, but they were under strict orders to keep him happy, a campaign official said. At one point, Trump looked out over the press section — comprised mostly of a few local reporters, and the campaign's typical traveling press — and squinted at Saul as he fished for compliments.

"Andrea, have you ever had this many reporters at an endorsement?" he asked.

"Never," she responded, dutifully.

He then turned to a campaign advance staffer, and asked the same question. He hesitated at first, but then offered, "It's more than normal." Trump nodded, satisfied.

But for all the campaign's herculean efforts to appease Trump and his outsize ego in pursuit of conservative approval, Romney hardly looked comfortable on stage as his newest supporter delivered a grandiose — and vaguely self-serving — address. When it was time for the photo op, Romney angled, ever so slightly, away from the camera. And when he had to come to the microphone, he looked as though he couldn't believe what he was doing.

"There are some things you just can't imagine happening," Romney said. "This is one of them."

Even one of Trump's aides conceded, of the afternoon, "[Romney] looked about as sheepish as you can get. He looked like a guy going to a dentist's office."

Of course, the Trump stunt did not end up sending Tea Partiers marching en masse to the primary polls to cast their vote for Mitt Romney. The robo-calls the campaign had Trump record did little to prevent the rise of more conservative challengers, and Romney would spend the next 10 weeks waging hand-to-hand combat with Rick Santorum — draining his war chest in the process, and distracting himself from his eventual general-election opponent.

When Romney finally emerged as the nominee, his association with Trump became, increasingly, a political headache. The reality-TV star wouldn't drop his obsession with the president's past and personal life, and as recently as last month, he publicly offered to donate $5 million to the charity of Obama's choice if the president agreed to release his college transcripts. Then, when Hurricane Sandy decimated parts of the East Coast, killing scores of people, Trump tweeted that he would extend the offer an extra couple of days "because of the hurricane."

While Republican primary voters might have found such antics viscerally satisfying — or at least easy to ignore — they were far less palatable to swing voters and moderate independents. Realizing this, the Obama administration did everything they could to tie Romney to Trump.

"Donald Trump is Mitt Romney’s biggest supporter, so he owns everything he says," senior White House adviser David Plouffe said last month.

Trump, meanwhile, refused to let off, believing, as one of his friends said, "in his heart of hearts that he's helping... Everywhere he goes, people are telling him, 'You’re right about this birth certificate issue!' He obviously believes it's legit."

He also required constant maintenance by the campaign to keep him from going completely off the rails. When he demanded a speaking slot at the Republican National Convention, the campaign talked him down to a safer, five-minute video — produced by senior campaign media strategist Russ Schriefer. According to one source familiar with the video, it was built around Trump delivering his signature line — "You're fired!" — to President Obama. The video never saw the light of day, though: The campaign scrapped it when Hurricane Isaac forced the cancellation of the program's first day. And Trump's vocal reactions to every scheduling change, of course, produced a slew of headlines. (Schriefer did not respond to queries.)

But even after all the hassle, Romney was extremely reluctant to publicly cut ties with Trump. Some in the campaign worried it would draw unnecessary attention to an episode they'd rather be forgotten in the general election, while others thought Trump might turn his powers of provocation on Romney if they snubbed him — drawing the ire of that elusive "base."

So Trump barreled along toward Election Day, ostensibly supporting Romney but ultimately unwilling to do what was necessary to get him elected (in this case, laying low and keeping his mouth shut). He used Romney's candidacy as a vehicle to rail against the president he hated, and when he was feeling generous, he occasionally paid lip service to the Republican nominee. Trump even got an invite to Romney's election night victory party at the Boston Convention Center.

But, like so much of the Republican base, he was never truly converted; and the sacrifices Romney made early on to win his support were never repaid with loyalty or enthusiastic support. As returns began to trickle in Tuesday night, it quickly became clear that the much-anticipated wave of Republican turnout had fallen short in many key battlegrounds. And once it became clear the night wasn't going to work out, Trump skipped town early. According to airport records, Trump's private helicopter departed Logan Airport in Boston at 11:19 p.m. headed for New Jersey — a full hour and a half before Romney delivered his concession speech.

On his way out of town, Trump filled his Twitter feed with outraged hysteria at the election's outcome, peppering his Tweets with words like "revolution" and "sham" and "disgusting injustice."

"We can't let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided!" he tweeted.

One name that didn't make it into this election-night Twitter meltdown: Romney.

Michael Cohen, a spokesman for Trump, said there was no strain in the relationship between him and the Romney campaign and that he was seriously committed to getting the Republican elected.

"I doubt the veracity of any statement that questions the strong relationship between Governor Romney and Donald Trump," Cohen said. "Trump was one of Mitt’s strongest and most popular surrogates. Mr. Trump and Romney’s senior staff communicated on a continuous basis and no such complaints alleged were ever voiced. I suspect the two will continue to maintain a relationship for years to come."

But another person close to Trump said the multimillionaire's view of Romney was and is relatively similar to how much of the Republican base views him.

"Trump was obviously always genuinely anti-Obama, but he bought into the idea that as a moderate, Romney had the best chance of beating Obama," the source said. "Given the choices he had, he thought Romney."

Would they stay in touch now that the election's over?

"Trump doesn’t like to be associated with failure," the source responded. "Trump's a winner. My guess is today he’s pretty disappointed."

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John Hickenlooper, Colorado's governor, opposed the measure.

Democrats credit “strategic decisions over many months.” Basking in the glow of unlikely Senate victories on Election Day.

Image by Eric Thayer / Reuters

WASHINGTON, D.C. — After an Election Day marked by a string of unlikely Democratic victories in Senate races, the Democratic Senator who made it happen wasn't about to let Republicans take credit — even for their missteps.

"Offensive comments from Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock did not decide this election," Sen. Patty Murray, the chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday. Instead, she credited her party's success to "strategic decisions over many months."

Among those decisions: Major investments in ground operations in states where the presidential race wasn't a factor — including Missouri, a firmly Republican state where the DSCC spent roughly $3 million on field operations alone to boost Sen. Claire McCaskill's reelection bid.

And Murray trumpeted the DSCC's success in endorsing candidates early and sticking with them — a sphere which proved problematic for Republicans in states such as Indiana, where Richard Mourdock bested incumbent Sen. Dick Lugar in the Republican primary race, setting the stage for a needlessly competitive general election contest.

Ultimately, of the eight Senate races considered straight tossups, Republicans won only one, in Nevada. Democrats, meanwhile, maintained control of the Senate and picked up one seat in the process.

"We have defied the odds," Murray said. "Good candidates and great campaigns do make a difference."

Let the tax battles begin.

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden celebrate on stage at the election night party at McCormick Place, Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2012, in Chicago. Obama defeated Republican challenger former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Image by Carolyn Kaster / AP

A day after winning re-election, Vice President Joe Biden declared that he and President Barack Obama have a mandate for raising taxes on the wealthy.

Speaking aboard Air Force Two en route to his home in Delaware, Biden discussed the looming fiscal cliff, citing polling showing an advantage for the Democratic plan.

"But from what it appears is that, on the issue of the tax issue, there was a clear, a clear sort of mandate about people coming much closer to our view about how to deal with tax policy," Biden told reporterson the plane. I think we can move, I'd like to see us, I think we can do something on corporate taxes sooner than later. That would be positive, be a little confidence-building."

Biden predicted that Republicans will need to "digest" their loss and will find a way to deal with Democrats.

"I think the fever will break," he said. "And you know, Barack's re-elected so this sort of cause to keep a second term from happening's done. He's there for four years. So I think there's going to be - I hope there's going to be some real soul-searching about, on Republican Party, about what they're willing to cooperate on."

Asked about his role in the second term of the Obama White House, Biden predicted it will be the same.

"Look I am, the relationship is the same, one where the president and I have become good friends and confidants," he said. "I mean I assume my role will be the same, as I know it's shorthand, but literally the last guy in the room. I think I'll probably be asked to play a similar role on the debt issue as we did last time. I think my reaching out to the Congress and the Senate, but I also know I will be doing a lot of foreign policy. So, It'll be whatever the issue of the day is. Like I told him the first time, I only want those assignments that have a sell-by date, you know?"

The fiscal cliff! Class warfare! Syrian warfare! Loopholes!!! As Shep puts it, “Whatever.”

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Shep's hope is going...

going...

gone.

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The U.S. election as told through the covers of 27 foreign newspapers

Argentina

Source: webmedia.newseum.org

Austria

Source: webmedia.newseum.org

Barbados

Source: webmedia.newseum.org

Belgium

Source: webmedia.newseum.org

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