CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Police say U.S. Sen. Rand Paul's son was arrested after a flight from Kentucky to North Carolina.

The Charlotte Observer reports 19-year-old William Hilton Paul was arrested Saturday morning at Charlotte Douglas International Airport and charged with alcohol-related offenses. http://bit.ly/13cI8me

The newspaper quotes Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Lt. Blake Hollar as saying it's possible Paul was served alcohol on the flight from Lexington, Ky., to Charlotte.

When the plane landed shortly before 11 a.m., the son of the Republican senator from Kentucky and grandson of former presidential candidate Ron Paul was charged with consuming beer/wine underage, disorderly conduct and being intoxicated and disruptive.

In a brief statement, Sen. Paul's office said "as many parents with teenagers would understand," the family requested their privacy be respected "in a situation such as this."

Aaron Blake, Washington Post
The first big vote of the 2016 presidential race was held Tuesday: the “fiscal cliff.” One major GOP contender, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), voted no on the package, while another, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), voted yes. And the votes may provide some insight into their potential 2016 strategies.(We should also note that a third potential candidate, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, voted no with Rubio.)

Kim Barker, ProPublica
In the waning days of Montana's hotly contested Senate race, a small outfit called Montana Hunters and Anglers, launched by liberal activists, tried something drastic. It didn't buy ads supporting the incumbent Democrat, Sen. Jon Tester. Instead, it put up radio and TV commercials that urged voters to choose the third-party candidate, libertarian Dan Cox, describing Cox as the "real conservative" or the "true conservative."

David Leonhardt, NYT
Senator John Kerry's nomination to be secretary of state makes him something of a throwback. He is an unsuccessful nominee for president who appears set to ascend to a major new political position following his loss.If he is confirmed, he will become the first losing general-election candidate to do so since Richard Nixon recovered from his close 1960 loss to John F. Kennedy to win the presidency in 1968.

Interested in re-election in 2014? You can pack your bags for home if you vote for the chained CPI. It doesn't matter what party: if you are a Democrat, the Republican candidate will hammer you for cutting Social Security. And if you are a Republican, the Democratic candidate will hammer you for cutting Social Security. It doesn't matter what they actually want. What matters is they have a vote to cut you off at the knees. Remember the Medicare assaults on Democrats in 2010.

The idea of compromise may sound good in December and elicit nice sound bites from inside the beltway. But once you cast that vote or even voice support for such an Obama/Boehner compromise, you are legitimizing cuts in Social Security. And that is what your opponent will focus on in 2014... Not an elite-endorsed compromise, but the fact that you cut Social Security benefits, for middle class retirees, disabled workers, low-income retirees, for Tea Party retirees, for union retirees, for Hispanic retirees, for African-American retirees, for Asian retirees, for white retirees, for blue collar and white collar retirees and for the working people who have lost private retirement savings and pensions and see Social Security as the only hope for keeping them from the cusp of poverty. That's a powerful coalition. One you should try to get on your side, not one that is captured by your opponent's rhetoric and demagoguery. So if you want to fuel the fire by selling out retirees, go ahead with a compromise. But you might want to start looking for employment outside of Congress after November 2014.

Chicago leaders discuss candidates to run for Jackson’s seat amid turmoil in the city’s black politics. James Warren on the state of play—and the possibility of a white candidate winning.

Pentagon investigators concluded that a senior defense official mentioned as a possible candidate to be the next CIA director leaked restricted information to the makers of the acclaimed film on the hunt for Osama bin Laden, and referred the case to the Justice Department, according to knowledgeable U.S. officials.

Nick Gillespie, Reason
Horrific events such as the mass shooting at Newtown, Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary School are terrible enough in showcasing the evil that men do.But they also regularly bring out the worst in observers, commentators, and pundits who will never let a lack of knowledge or expertise stand in the way of making grand pronouncements.Here's a short tour of four of the least-helpful reactions to an attack that slaughtered more than two dozen Americans - most of them kids 10 years and younger. They come courtesy of a former presidential candidate (Mike Huckabee), an international...

Rep. Michele Bachmann has built her political career by being outspoken. It has helped her raise tens of millions of dollars and go from obscure back bencher to presidential candidate in three terms.

Stuart Rothenberg, Roll Call
As another election year draws to a close, it's time again for me to pick the cycle's winners and losers, my most and least favorite candidates, and those who distinguished themselves by skill or by old-fashioned dumb luck.After three successive partisan wave elections, the overarching takeaway from the 2012 cycle is that candidates and the campaigns they run still matter. Up and down the ballot — from the presidential race to Senate contests to various House races — we saw examples of how the strength of one candidate/campaign (or the sheer ineptitude of...

LAS VEGAS -- Defeated presidential candidate Mitt Romney was a guest ringside Saturday night at the fourth fight between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez.

Romney also visited with Pacquiao in his dressing room before the fight, wishing him well in the bout.

"Hello Manny. I ran for president. I lost," Romney told the fighter, according to Pacquiao publicist Fred Sternburg.

Pacquiao is a congressman in the Philippines, and has said previously he might run one day for the president of his country.

Romney and his wife, Ann, were guests of Nevada State Athletic Commission chairman Bill Brady at the fight at the MGM Grand hotel arena. Brady hosted a fundraiser for Romney during the presidential campaign.

The Romneys arrived during the undercard, drawing little reaction from the crowd.

Charles Blow, New York Times
Finally, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida — a Tea Party darling and possible 2016 presidential candidate — admits that dinosaurs and humans didn’t co-exist.Last month, when GQ asked Rubio “how old do you think the Earth is?” he stammered through an answer.

By Alina Selyukh and Alexander Cohen

WASHINGTON, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Mitt Romney's presidential campaign had $25.7 million left in the bank days after the Nov. 6 election that ended months of relentless fundraising in the most expensive race in U.S. history, new campaign finance disclosures showed on Thursday.

President Barack Obama, a Democrat, defeated the Republican candidate following a campaign that cost more than $2 billion overall.

Obama's re-election effort had $14.2 million left as of Nov. 26, according to the Federal Election Commission disclosures.

Leftover campaign cash is common and often goes to the national party or other candidates.

The Romney campaign on Thursday said every raised dollar had gone toward Romney's run and that it "continues to process invoices for pre-election expenses." It expected to have less than $1 million by the end of the year.

"It is not uncommon. It is of course a great risk," said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics that tracks campaign finance. "As a loser you want to make sure you've given it your all."

Obama and Romney both spent much of their campaign cash on voter outreach and especially advertising. But the Democrat and his "Super PAC" backers at Priorities USA Action, an unlimited-spending group, held an early advertising game advantage.

Obama's campaign dominated the airwaves, booking the increasingly expensive spots earlier and at the lowest price.

The "super" political action committee, which was legally barred from coordinating with the campaign, ran a series of aggressive ads about Romney's private equity past that portrayed him as a corporate raider.

The damaging ads, as well as negative press surrounding Romney's disparaging "47 percent" comment about Americans relying on government funds, contributed to the candidate's defeat.

The pro-Romney Super PAC Restore Our Future - boosted once again by this year's Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson - plowed $45.5 million into a last-ditch effort to sway voters, according to Thursday's filings.

But according to Reuters/Ipsos polling, nearly three-quarters of Americans had made up their minds in the presidential race before Obama and Romney faced off in the first debate on Oct. 3.

The pro-Obama group spent $20.9 million from Oct. 18 and had $4.3 million in cash on hand as of Nov. 26, according to the FEC filings. Romney's Restore Our Future reported having $842,062 left.

Adelson, billionaire chief executive of Las Vegas Sands , and his wife Miriam contributed another $10 million to Restore Our Future, accounting for nearly half of all the group's last-minute fundraising and bringing the couple's total gift to the Super PAC to $30 million.

Adelson's total donations to Republican candidates and organizations, although not all of them are disclosed, are said to have topped $100 million this election cycle. He planned to spend "that much and more" in the next campaign, he told the Wall Street Journal earlier this month.

The pro-Obama Super PAC received 11th-hour $1 million infusions from two of its own top donors, media mogul Fred Eychaner and Houston lawyer Steve Mostyn. They brought Eychaner's total to $4.5 million, and Mostyn's to $3 million, according to FEC filings. (Editing by Xavier Briand)

WASHINGTON -- Former Mitt Romney campaign adviser Stuart Stevens on Wednesday tried to explain the Republican presidential candidate's loss, telling PBS's Charlie Rose that the campaign lost control in its final week as Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast.

"After the storm, I never had a good feeling," Stevens said. "Not that the storm impacted things so much, per se, but these races -- a race like this is a lot like an NBA game. It's all about ball control at the end. ... We went from having these big rallies around the country to literally sitting around in hotel rooms and there was just nothing we could do about it."

Stevens has carried on as a cheerleader for Romney since the election, though many in the Republican Party have abandoned the candidate. The former adviser wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post last week, claiming Romney's ideas "carried the day" with voters who made more than $50,000 per year -- arguing those votes showed Romney was favored by the middle class.

Stevens told Rose he wrote that piece because he felt it was important to stand up for his side, even when it wasn't doing well.

Stevens gave a number of potential reasons for the election loss. He said the Romney campaign had to deal with both a grueling primary and the general election, which took up resources and at times led to muddled messaging. Overall, he said the campaign didn't expect Democrats to bring out so many voters, and Romney simply could not measure up.

He didn't blame the loss on Romney's comments about the "47 percent" of people who the candidate said are dependent on the government and want to stay that way. But he acknowledged it did damage.

"There are always moments when things don't come out right," Stevens said of Romney's remarks.

Stevens also addressed the infamous Clint Eastwood chair moment during the Republican National Convention, when the legendary actor was given prime-time billing and surprised nearly everyone by yelling at an imaginary President Barack Obama instead.

Eastwood "had very specific things that he was supposed to say," but took a different format at the last minute, Stevens said.

"Eastwood, um, it was very good of him to come out," Stevens said. "It's very difficult to get Hollywood people to come out. He felt strongly about this and he wanted to do it. He's spoken himself as to why he decided to do what he did. ... He asked for a chair as he was standing to go on stage."

James Antle, TAS
Presumably the Republicans' next presidential candidate will have less in common with John Kerry.Barack Obama took the Republicans' best shot and won a second term. In an even stronger tribute to his campaign team's skills and get-out-the-vote operation, the president beat Republican challenger Mitt Romney in every meaningful swing state except North Carolina"”and even there he came within 100,000 votes.Nevertheless, some perspective is in order. Much of the post-election commentary suggests we have witnessed a party realignment on par with the Democrats'...

WASHINGTON -- Stephanie Cutter still doesn't understand why Mitt Romney's campaign did not more forcefully defend its candidate's business experience.

Cutter, who served as President Barack Obama's deputy campaign manager in the 2012 election, said on Friday that the Romney campaign's failure to aggressively respond to the attacks on Bain Capital was one of its biggest mistakes.

"I never understood why they never pushed back on our attacks on his business experience," Cutter said at the seventh annual RootsCamp conference for progressive organizers in Washington, D.C. "He ran largely on an argument that, 'I understand the real economy, I know how to fix this and the president doesn't -- he's never been in the real economy,' with his only credential his Bain experience."

The Obama campaign hammered Romney on Bain during the campaign, essentially painting the former Massachusetts governor as a corporate takeover artist who founded a firm that specialized in outsourced U.S. jobs.

While some prominent Democrats initially criticized the Obama campaign for "attacking private equity," the campaign didn't back down.

"We weren't making an argument ... that Bain was bad," Cutter said on Friday. "We were making an argument that this experience does not qualify you to be president of the United States or to understand the real economy. We obviously worked hard to tear that down, and they never built it back up. I never understood why."

Cutter isn't alone in her confusion on the Romney strategy. GOP political strategist Karl Rove, whose Crossroads groups spent more than $300 million in the 2012 election on candidates -- who, for the most part, lost -- also said on Fox News after the election that the Romney campaign should have fought back faster.

"The first group to respond to the attacks on Bain Capital was not the Romney campaign, it was American Crossroads with an ad in July. We don't do defense all that well," Rove said, adding that it was sometimes more effective to have the candidate appear in an ad and respond directly to the charges being leveled.

"I don't know if they didn't have a good understanding as to the deals that we were talking about, or the history of Romney at Bain, but I never understood why they didn't make a counter-argument to what we were saying -- which was his sole credential," Cutter said. "Remember, it was really the only thing he put on the table to qualify him as president."

Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom did not return a request for comment on Cutter's remarks.

After months of fervently trying to move the conversation away from Bain, the Romney campaign did finally bring it back in August. The Republican National Convention highlighted individuals connected to Bain who all portrayed Romney as a strong leader with integrity, and as someone who would be able to save a struggling U.S. economy just as he turned around failing businesses.

Cutter also pointed to Romney's rightward shift in the GOP primary as a problem, noting he was never fully able to recover.

Ronald Brownstein, National Journal
The same dynamic that powered the Democrats' unexpected Senate gains this fall could also give the party more leverage to drive its legislative agenda through the chamber in the months ahead.At the core of the Democrats' surprising pickup of two Senate seats was a consistent pattern. In almost every major contested Senate race, exit polls showed that the Democratic candidate won more support among voters who also backed President Obama than the Republican nominee did among voters who backed Mitt Romney. 

Susan Rice, the candidate believed to be favored by President Obama to become the next Secretary of State, holds significant investments in more than a dozen Canadian oil companies and banks that would stand to benefit from expansion of the North American tar sands industry and construction of the proposed $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline.

Joan Walsh, Salon
When the Romney campaign seemed to implode in September and the blame game began, lots of blame got dumped on top strategist Stuart Stevens. Not surprisingly, Stevens has penned a defense of his candidate and his campaign "“ and it’s delusional, divisive and unbelievably stupid.In his Washington Post Op-Ed, “Mitt Romney: A good man. The right fight,” Stevens seems to argue that Romney practically won, because he won a majority of voters who make more than $50,000 a year. “That means he carried the majority of middle-class...

President Barack Obama's reelection has awoken great expectations among big sectors of the population, especially among the Hispanics. After the great deception that was Obama's broken promise to spearhead a comprehensive immigration reform during his first administration -- not to mention he had promised to present it during the first year of his administration -- many now believe that due to the enormous support that the Hispanics granted him last 6th of November, there will be no valid excuse for not embarking on the reform.

Beyond the great blow suffered by the Republicans because the minorities, particularly the Hispanics, overwhelmingly favored President Obama -- to the point that now there are many Republican leaders that insist in the need to erase that anti-immigration image left by the bloody battle sustained during the primary elections and the wishy-washy position assumed by its candidate with respect to the illegal immigrants -- truth is that the conditions to obtain a comprehensive immigration reform are now not much better than four years ago. And they aren't because in the current circumstances, President Obama's power is fenced-in.

Obama's triumph on November's elections could not be clearer. According to the Exit Poll conducted by Edison Research, cited in a recent article on the Urbancincy webpage:

"President Obama earned approximately 69.4 percent of the vote in cities with more than 500,000 people, and 58.4 percent of the vote in cities with 50,000 to 500,000 people. Furthermore, with the exception of Jacksonville and Salt Lake City's home counties, President Obama won the plurality of votes in every major American city." And this is not all. According to the same research, "President Obama earned the vote of 92.7 percent of black voters, 70.6 percent of Hispanic voters, 73.2 percent of Asian voters, and 57.7 percent of all other non-white voters."

Mitt Romney bet on the support from the white population and obtained, according to the same source 58.7 percent of their votes. Given the demographic changes that the country has undergone during the last few years, this was not enough for Romney to win to the presidency. But it was enough for his party to obtain the majority in the House of Representatives. According to an article by Emily Bazelon in Slate, "even though Obama won Pennsylvania by 5 points, Republicans took 13 of 18 House districts. In Ohio, Obama won by two and the GOP kept 12 of 16 House seats." And the same happened in other states: Obama won and the Republicans were left not only with the majority in the House of Representatives but in the states legislatures.

Although many voters divided their vote -- the president from one party and the Congressmen from another -- the apparent incongruence is mainly product of the so-called gerrymandering, a practice by which the limits of an electoral district are manipulated to favor a particular party or candidate. And, as is clearly explained in the All About Redistricting blog by professor Justin Levitt of Loyola Law School of Los Angeles:

"In most states, the state legislature has primary control of the redistricting process, both for state legislative districts and for congressional districts. 37 state legislatures have primary control of their own district lines, and 42 legislatures have primary control over the congressional lines in their state (including five of the states with just one congressional district)."

According to Bazelon, "Gerrymandering is an American game both parties play because the courts allow it and the voters don't punish them for it." Sometimes it's played by Democrats, other times by Republicans. In this occasion, the turn was for the Republicans, who took advantage of their winnings in the last legislative elections of 2010, "which, happily for them, was also a giant redistricting year because it followed the latest census."

Citing Columbia Law Professor Nathaniel Persily, Bazelon says:

"The upshot, in light of population distribution, is Democrats control the line drawing for 44 congressional seats and 885 state legislative seats, while Republicans control the line drawing for 210 congressional seats and 2,498 state legislative seats. No wonder the House stayed safely in Republican hands even though the presidency and the Senate did not."

And that division of powers has implications that go further than internal politics. According to a recent article by the respected Professor Paul Kennedy, "the foreign policies of the number one power are those of drifting slowly downstream, with little sense of destination." And when venturing into the reasons for this, he asks himself:

"Why not admit that the world's number one power is constitutionally flawed and inadequate when it comes to handling foreign-policy issues? (...) Since the U.S. president comes from one party, and the Congress may often be in the hands of the rival party, how can one expect firm decisions being made on tricky matters such as a policy towards the Palestinians or ways of cutting the defense budget? Often, the president seems less like the commander in chief than a latter-day Gulliver tied down by Lilliputians."

Kennedy states that it's not strange that because of this "most of the Earth's democracies have adopted a parliamentary rather than a presidential form of governance." I do not believe that such a radical change is needed. The more checks and balances, the merrier. But I do believe that it's necessary to pay more attention to the infamous gerrymandering. With things as they are -- and even though there are several districts that will be redefined during the next few years -- it will not be easy for the Republicans to lose their majority in the House, at least during the current administration. And that will make things difficult for President Barack Obama to keep all his promises. Specially the one of a comprehensive immigration reform, unless the Republicans, defeated during the last elections by minorities that are very interested in the issue of immigration, moderate their attitude and consider that said reform has become essential to keep their current bastions of power.

Fresh from the campaign trail and mulling his options for the future, former vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan will play a pivotal role in negotiations over the fiscal cliff and faces a choice of two paths.

Political campaigns are designedly made into emotional orgies which endeavor to distract attention from the real issues involved, and they actually paralyze what slight powers of cerebration man can normally muster. -- James Harvey Robinson, The Human Comedy

Herewith an update on the presidential election of 2016. Although it may seem to some a bit early to focus on such things given the fact that it is less than one month since the last election, news events suggest the next campaign is in full swing. The new season started less than a week following the election.

On November 11, 2012, a piece by Steve Holland published by Reuters had the eye catching headline "2016: Who's in play?" For those suffering political withdrawal it was like a drink from the fountain of eternal campaigns. It named six Republicans who might become candidates with a brief description of their qualities and five Democrats with similar descriptions. The named Republicans were Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan, Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal and Condoleezza Rice. The Democrats were Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Martin O'Malley, Mark Warner and Andrew Cuomo. With the publication of those 11 names political junkies get an idea of whom they should be tracking during the next four years. Of course, there is still the possibility that an outsider not yet identified will enter the arena but anyone who hasn't already made his/her intentions known will be at a distinct disadvantage.

In addition to the identification of candidates by Mr. Holland, another indication of presidential intentions can be found by keeping track of who's going to Iowa. A visit to Iowa by a politician gives a clear indication of the visitor's interest in things presidential since no one goes to Iowa in November as a tourist. In connection with the 2016 presidential election, the first politician to indicate his interest in being the next president of the United States (rather than simply being identified in the Reuters piece) is Marco Rubio of Florida. Before all the recounting of disputed ballots from the 2012 election had been completed, he packed his suitcase, left sunny Florida and went to Iowa. He said he was going to Iowa to participate in a birthday celebration for Iowa governor Terry Branstad who turned 66. Mr. Rubio carefully explained that his visit had nothing to do with any presidential ambitions. According to Governor Branstead, the event raised more than $600,000, more than the governor said he "had raised before in any single event." Observers said this was the first chance Mr. Rubio had to "woo" Iowa voters and the governor said he "hit a homerun." Although it is too soon to anoint him the Republican nominee since the other five may also be planning on heading for Iowa, being the first to make the pilgrimage it certainly gives him a leg up, more especially since he hit a "homerun."

I would be remiss if I did not address the equally important question of who is likely to be the Democratic candidate out of the five identified above. For the answer to that question we turn to the Buffalo News. Six days after the election the paper made its formal endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president in 2016. And Hillary didn't even have to go to Iowa. In an editorial published exactly one week after the election the Buffalo News said "It's not too early to be thinking about who would make an excellent candidate for the presidency in 2016." Since the editorial was accompanied by a picture of Hillary Clinton it was not necessary to read to the end to figure out of whom the editors were thinking. For the slow of wit, however, the editors made it plain when, after listing all her accomplishments the editorial concluded: "For the country's sake, and because she clearly is the best candidate, we hope the competing factions in national Democratic politics will coalesce to make her the nominee." With than endorsement virtually clinching it for Hillary (if the suggested coalescence takes place as one would hope) the country will be spared a divisive and extended campaign on the Democratic side. That will enable the country to focus all its attention on the Republican contest and if Republicans are as tired as the rest of us at the prospect of four more years of campaigning they might decide to reward Marco for his early visit to Iowa by simply agreeing that he will be their candidate.

The only downside to such early selections would be that they deprive us of the opportunity to learn what the positions of the other candidates might have been had they been permitted to participate. Given the lack of substance in the 2012 campaigns and the likelihood of a similar lack in connection with the 2016 election, that is a small price to pay for political silence.

Christopher Brauchli can be emailed at brauchli.56@post.harvard.edu. For political commentary see his web page at http://humanraceandothersports.com

Rich Lowry, National Review
By Rich Lowry - November 23, 2012U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice is set to go straight from misleading the country about a matter of national security to a promotion.A top candidate to replace Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, Rice famously purveyed erroneous information about the Benghazi terror attack on five Sunday shows a few days after the deadly incident.But, hey, these things happen. The conventional wisdom says Republicans should get over it and concentrate their energies on more useful pursuits like caving to President Barack Obama on taxes. We are supposed to believe that...

Higgins & Cortes, RealClearPolitics
You might not believe it, but assume we’re right for a minute. What word would you guess decided the election? Hurricane Sandy?The answer lies in perhaps the single most illustrative exit poll question conducted, where CNN asked “What is the most important candidate quality to your vote?”The response options were “Strong Leader,” “Shares Your Values,” “Has a Vision for the Future,” and “Cares about People.” Among folks that chose one of the first three responses, Mitt Romney won...