Here's a very good rule of thumb in politics: losing begets losing.

When Obama was inaugurated, he and his team had an insight - though whether the insight was conscious or not I don't know. But it was this: The TARP $700 billion price tag was a new kind of model.

The presidency is not an entry-level electoral job.

The thing is, Obama is right that it would be a calamity for the government to default on its debt by not meeting its obligations. Such a thing has never happened and can't be allowed to happen.

In 2013, there were 6,261 black homicide victims in the US — almost all killed by black civilians.

That distinctive presidential conduct is now gone forever, banished to the snows of yesteryear by Barack Obama. From the beginning of his presidency to the present, he has spoken specifically and in unprecedented fashion of Republicans as his rivals, his stumbling blocks, the primary cause of his troubles.

Romney is a good, intelligent, extraordinarily generous man who put on a great fight. But he didn't understand the country or the people he sought to lead, and that is why he lost.