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.

Is victory sweet because your side wins – or is it really because the other side loses?

Over the next decade, cities and states across America will be compelled to tighten their belts as the really big bills – the pension bills they cannot afford – come due. They’ll have to go after existing contracts with current workers.

Your race and gender don’t change, but you can choose to change your political affiliation at will.

Obama’s presidency hasn’t been dedicated to achieving economic growth in the short term, or about creating jobs.

Obama’s coalition would have consigned him to the political margins as little as 12 years ago, but the nation’s demographic changes are moving far more quickly than most Republicans anticipated.

As a member of the Mormon church, Romney is instructed to tithe 10 percent of his income. That’s in keeping with most charitable giving: Religious institutions get about one-third of all contributions, according to ‘The American’ magazine.

Memories of the last nine years have turned Ground Zero from a site of horror, to a reminder of grief, to an occasion for ludicrous artistic posturing – and now to something very close to parody.

While negativity is politically useful, it is also demoralizing unless it is accompanied – and to some extent overshadowed – by elevated and inspiring ideas about the American future.

Back in 1995, Bill Gates himself didn’t understand that the internet was the direction computing was going.