There's been a lot of post-election hand-wringing about how the Republicans can "reach out" to minority voters. If they can't win just by energizing their shrinking base of white people, what's next? Immigration reform? Marco Rubio? What's it going to take?

At the same time, you have former vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan blaming the Romney loss on voters from "urban areas." Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

Fascinating piece in The LA Times about a call that Mitt Romney had with his donors.  Romney basically repeats the 47% argument, without the blunt language.  Obama won, says Romney, because he turned out throngs of people who want health care and the possibility of student loan forgiveness.

For example:

Late in the week, The Daily called with the kind of assignment that no opinion writer could turn down.  Obama has a chance to be the Reagan of the left, they said.  If he gets a reasonable amount of what he wants in his second term, what will America look like?  Writing this longer essay was an exercise in optimism and, though I tried to be realistic, I also found it kind of a tonic for cynicism.  Things can get better, with just the ideas that Obama has expressed and hinted at.

The pundits are pondering. They mention mandates and movements, margins and maneuvers and meetings in the middle. They wax wisely on who won and why they won and which way the wind will waft on Wednesday.

We love to mock them, these prattling experts and prognosticators. And yet we listen, we read, we react. We can't help ourselves. We want to know what it all means and what will happen next. We are determined to squeeze great meaning from great events. We are all pundits.

But the truth is that the great election of November 7, 2012, was all but meaningless. It represents neither a pivot point nor a portent. A poor candidate lost to a strong candidate, as as he was expected to do. A diverse majority of Democrats in the Senate will continue to play a weak hand weakly. A militant majority of Republicans in the House will continue to obstruct, ignoring calls for moderation as they have done for two decades. The federal government will hobble feebly along.