“To the degree that it was a distraction, it was bad," Romney's former adviser says.

O'Malley takes a victory lap after signing a proclamation today recognizing that gay marriage is now legal in Maryland.

Fox News commentator and for-a-brief-moment 2006 U.S. Senate candidate KT McFarland pushes back on Bob Woodward's story, documented by audio tape, about her relaying to Gen. David Petraeus that her boss, Roger Ailes, wanted him to run for president. On the Fox News website, McFarland writes:

Virginia Attorney General and presumptive GOP gubernatorial nominee Ken Cuccinelli sent a curt note this week to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) regarding how the party should nominate candidates — an issue that has become a stand-in for the broader fight in the state between establishment and conservative Republicans.

They're falling over themselves to get their hands on it for their own campaigns.

Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin has been elected to lead the Democratic Governors Association for 2013, a DGA source tells POLITICO.

Colin Campbell has a scooplet on a type of message from Hillary Clinton - letters to at least a handful of Democrats who lost their congressional campaigns a few weeks ago, just as she gets ready to leave the State Department amid questions about her political future.

We reported on this page a few weeks ago that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had asked Sen. Michael Bennet to helm the DSCC. We also reported that Bennet made clear he wouldn't do it unless executive director Guy Cecil, his former chief-of-staff who steered the committee to a hugely successful election night, remained on. And both things have happened, our colleagues John Bresnahan and Manu Raju scoop:

Michael Barbaro, in his latest scoop since leaving the Mitt Romney bubble, reports that New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg called Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier this year and urged her to run as his sucessor:

Republicans from Mitt Romney on down failed to engage fully and win the national economic debate, GOP pollster David Winston said.

Former presidential candidate and Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney is getting a new job title: member of Marriott International's board of directors.

The term-limited governor of Indiana said Mitt Romney lost because of his disparaging remarks about Americans who do not pay income taxes.

Outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton remains the biggest-name potential Democratic 2016 presidential hopeful who has yet to take a position in support of gay marriage, a source of discussion in Washington this week after the State Department hosted a major LGBT event.

Israel has become an essential stop for presidential candidates, especially for Republicans in the age of Obama.

Jets owner and Mitt Romney mega-bundler Woody Johnson is hosting a lunch meeting with dozens of New York-area bundlers and Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus on Monday, which two bundlers described as a "vent session" to go over what happened in the 2012 election.

The results wrongly bolstered the Republican's confidence during the last days of the race.

The two pledged to stay in touch and work together, a source says.

As Chris Christie's approval numbers soar, PPP finds a potentially easier opportunity for Cory Booker in the New Jersey Senate race.

Stuart Stevens says the images of Obama managing Hurricane Sandy were 'very helpful' to the president.

He heard some of Romney’s post-election comments, most notably his claim that the president won reelection because of “gifts” given to various constituencies. “It stands not only for a losing campaign but for a sore loser,” Hartsburg said.