Republicans are dug in as ever against raising new taxes, and their budgetary standard-bearer, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, said Sunday that the Republican House of Representatives has already moved past the question of new revenues. 

Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman and former GOP vice presidential nominee, laid out the contours of what will almost certainly be a bruising springtime debate on taxes and spending — an outgrowth of the unresolved consequences of the "fiscal cliff."

And as the GOP-held House and the Democratic-controlled Senate prepare dueling budget proposals, Ryan argued that the president was unserious about tackling the mounting national debt. 

"The president got his additional revenues. So that's behind us," Ryan said on NBC's "Meet the Press" in his first live interview since the presidential election, when Ryan and presidential candidate Mitt Romney lost decisively to President Barack Obama. 

During the campaign, Romney and Ryan talked forcefully about reforming taxes and raising revenues by closing loopholes and deductions that favor the wealthy. While Democrats won higher taxes on household income over $450,000 as part of the New Year's deal to stave off the automatic tax hikes and spending cuts in the fiscal cliff, Democrats now say they'll produce a budget asking for even more revenue, possibly through similar tax reforms.

"Are we for raising revenues? No we're not," Ryan said. "If you keep raising revenues, you're not going to get decent tax reform."

The Wisconsin congressman's comments portend a debate over taxes and spending in Washington featuring parties as far apart as ever. Republicans this week passed legislation to suspend the debt limit — and, with it, the specter of default — until May. But Congress must still reckon with the need to continue funding the government, and address the automatic and drastic spending cuts (known as the "sequester") that were delayed only for two months as part of the fiscal cliff.

"I think the sequester's going to happen," Ryan said, blaming Democrats for offering no palatable substitute for those cuts. 

And Ryan said that Republicans were "not interested" in a government shutdown, the consequence for which some GOP lawmakers have openly called should Obama and lawmakers fail to reach an agreement to fund the government.

But those looming questions — which are tied directly into the budgets that the House and Senate will debate this spring — reflect how Washington remained as vexed as ever by fiscal issues. 

And the rhetoric is hot as ever, too.

"I don't think that the president actually thinks we have a fiscal crisis," Ryan said. 

With tax and spending matters set to dominate much of lawmakers' energy for the first half of this year, it could make other elements of Obama's agenda — like immigration reform and curbing gun violence — more politically difficult. 

Ryan, who has praised a bipartisan set of immigration reforms offered by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, R, said he was cautiously optimistic about the prospects for immigration reform this year. But Ryan said that Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike would closely watch Obama's speech on Tuesday in Nevada on that topic.

And of the president's gun control measures, Ryan suggested openness to embracing some measures — like requiring universal background checks on gun sales — while expressing skittishness toward other elements of the plan, like the ban on assault weapons.

As Ryan himself navigates these very thorny issues for the next four years, his every action will be refracted through the prism of 2016 presidential politics. After having emerged as something of a GOP rock star as Romney's running mate last fall, many Republicans hope that the Wisconsin congressman might seek the presidency himself in four years, joining a tentative field of Republican contenders for the nomination that is full of proverbial heavyweights.

Ryan offered a familiar answer about his own potential ambitions, saying he doesn't think about running, and that he was currently focused on his job serving his constituents. 

"I think it's just premature. I've got an important job to do," he said. "I'll decide later about that."

Mark Wilson / Getty Images

President Barack Obama is sworn in by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts as First lady Michelle Obama and daughters, Sasha Obama and Malia Obama look on during the public ceremonial inauguration on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 21, 2013.

Updated 4:33 p.m. — President Barack Obama issued a call to unity in his second inaugural address, urging the nation to move past the divisions that marked the last four years in politics and complete the work of living up to America's founding principles.

The president, in a speech that blended together post-partisan rhetoric and policy declarations, highlighted the progress made during his first term to end foreign wars and turn around the economy.

But Obama said that there was much unfinished work ahead, and he used Monday's speech to urge political leaders to finally rise above bitter squabbling — a recurring theme of his first term, and a mark of how difficult it has been for Obama to live up to his 2008 vow to change Washington's business as usual.

"Our journey is not complete," Obama said during one refrain in his speech.

Related: The full text of President Barack Obama's inaugural address

"We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate," Obama said. "We must act, knowing that our work will be imperfect.  We must act, knowing that today’s victories will be only partial, and that it will be up to those who stand here in four years, and forty years, and four hundred years hence to advance the timeless spirit once conferred to us in a spare Philadelphia hall."

Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts and Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, respectively, shortly before noon; Monday's oath of office was ceremonial, following their formal, constitutionally-prescribed swearing-in on Sunday.

Monday's ceremonies coincided with the federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. Obama nodded to the slain civil rights leader during his speech, and the nation's first African-American president used one of King's Bibles during today's inauguration.

The president's speech, though, strode between acknowledging the accomplishments of his first term and the new priorities for his second. The president begins his new term this week intent upon pursuing an ambitious agenda following his decisive re-election victory last November over Republican opponent Mitt Romney.

Related: First Thoughts: Obama's second term begins

Rebuilding the economy, strengthening entitlement programs for future generations and addressing the threat of climate change were among the initiatives upon which the president touched during his speech. Obama nodded toward other priorities, that were set to define his next four years in office: equal rights for gay and lesbian Americans, immigration reform that offers undocumented residents a pathway to citizenship and new rules to curb gun violence.

But as political leaders from both parties looked on from the inaugural platform, Obama avoided much of the hard-charging rhetoric of last year's campaign.

Romney, the erstwhile GOP nominee, spent Inauguration Day at his home in La Jolla, Calif., and a former aide told NBC News it was unlikely that the former Massachusetts governor would watch today's festivities.

Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, Romney's running mate last fall, said today was not a day to emphasize partisan divisions.

"But today, we put those disagreements aside," Ryan said in a statement. "Today, we remember what we share in common."

To be sure, a variety of bruising political battles between Obama and Congress — in particular, a House of Representatives controlled by Republicans — loomed on the horizon. On Wednesday, Republicans said, they would vote on a measure to extend the nation's debt limit by a few months.

Earlier in the day, Obama and the first family attended a service at St. John's Episcopal Church — the "Church of the Presidents," as it is sometimes known — just two blocks from the White House.

There, Dr. Luis Leon, the rector of the church, led a series of "prayers for the nation," Washington Cardinal Donald Weurl led a Gospel reading, and an Alexandria, Va., rabbi offered a final blessing. Biden and his wife also attended the service.

Former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter were among the dignitaries in attendance during the oath-of-office ceremonies during late Monday morning. Celebrities including musician Jay-Z and actress Eva Longoria joined government officials on the inaugural platform, and attendees were treated to performances by the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, Beyonce, Kelly Clarkson and James Taylor.

Obama retreated to a traditional luncheon on Capitol Hill following the inaugural ceremonies before participating in the parade down Washington's Pennsylvania Avenue.

"I recognize that democracy is not always easy, and I recognize there are profound differences in this room," Obama said in a toast before a bipartisan group of lawmakers, "but I just want to say thank you for your service and I want to thank your families for their service, because regardless of our political persuasions and perspectives, I know that all of us serve because we believe that we can make America for future generations."

Afterward, the president and first lady entered the motorcade from the Capitol and back to the White House, leaving the presidential motorcade at moments to walk for a portion of the trip.

The president and first lady will make their way to glitzy, black-tie inaugural balls later this evening before wrapping the whirlwind day of festivities.

NBC's Peter Alexander contributed to this report.

House Republicans are holding a panel during their retreat on Friday focused on improving their performance among women and minority voters, who broke against GOP candidates in a slew of battleground races this past election.

The House Republican Conference will convene a panel on Friday morning for their members, called a "Discussion on Successful Communication with Minorities and Women," at their annual retreat in Williamsburg, Va. The discussion is intended to help the GOP reverse its slide among women and minority voters, and foster a future Republican Party that more closely reflects the changing American populace.

A major contributing factor that led to President Barack Obama’s re-election was his strength amongst women and minorities. Huge margins with these groups in states like Ohio and Florida pushed the president to a total of 332 electoral votes and left Republicans to wrestle with how to expand their base beyond a disproportionately white and aging constituency.

Friday's panel, according to the published names, indicate it will include two Latino women, three white men and a Latino moderator. Yet the panel is not without an issue in optics; the room where the discussion will take place is called the “Burwell Plantation” room at the Kingsmill Resort.

In fact, the room is named after the Burwell Family, a wealthy family that owned many slaves in 18th century Southern Virginia. Records pertaining to the families owning of slaves is well-documented by the city of Williamsburg on their website.

Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., who heads Republicans' campaign efforts, deflected a question regarding the irony of a panel trying to help the GOP woo minorities happening in a room named after a slave-owning family’s plantation.

"I don't pick the rooms we meet in," Walden said. "I know the Democrats have held their retreats here too and I assume you'll go and figure out if they ever held meetings in that same room."

When pressed on why there were three white men (half the group) on a panel regarding minority outreach Walden said, "Actually, I don't do this part of it, by the way, somebody can fill you in on all the names, but it is more than just three white guys on the panel, and it was filled out after that went to press."

Walden made known that minority outreach and recruiting minority House GOP candidates were a “top priority” and that the GOP had a “good message” for minorities but had suffered from a recent "bad communications."

A Georgia Republican congressman said that former Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin, R, was "partly right" in asserting that victims of "legitimate rape" rarely become pregnant.

Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., a former obstetrician-gynecologist, said at a town hall meeting that Akin was “partly right” in his controversial suggestion, which was widely cited as a factor in his loss to Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, D, this past November.

Gingrey said, according to the Marietta Daily Journal:

“And in Missouri, Todd Akin … was asked by a local news source about rape and he said, ‘Look, in a legitimate rape situation’ — and what he meant by legitimate rape was just look, someone can say I was raped: a scared-to-death 15-year-old that becomes impregnated by her boyfriend and then has to tell her parents, that’s pretty tough and might on some occasion say, ‘Hey, I was raped.’ That’s what he meant when he said legitimate rape versus non-legitimate rape. I don’t find anything so horrible about that. But then he went on and said that in a situation of rape, of a legitimate rape, a woman’s body has a way of shutting down so the pregnancy would not occur. He’s partly right on that.”

[...]

“And I’ve delivered lots of babies, and I know about these things. It is true. We tell infertile couples all the time that are having trouble conceiving because of the woman not ovulating, ‘Just relax. Drink a glass of wine. And don’t be so tense and uptight because all that adrenaline can cause you not to ovulate.’ So he was partially right wasn’t he? But the fact that a woman may have already ovulated 12 hours before she is raped, you’re not going to prevent a pregnancy there by a woman’s body shutting anything down because the horse has already left the barn, so to speak. And yet the media took that and tore it apart.”

Akin originally told KTVI-TV in August: “First of all, from what I understand from doctors, [pregnancy from rape] is really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

Republicans quickly distanced themselves from Akin, urging him to end his bid for Senate to allow another GOP candidate to step forward. Mitt Romney, then the party’s presidential nominee, publicly said that Akin should end his campaign.

However, Akin, a congressman, resisted the calls for him to drop out, giving Democrats fodder to paint Republicans as out-of-touch with women voters. Another GOP Senate candidate, Indiana’s Richard Mourdock, also gave fodder to Democrats when he suggested that pregnancies by rape were “something God intended.” (Mourdock, like Akin, lost a Senate race on which Republicans had been counting to win.)

Gingrey addressed the cost of those controversies before making his own assessment of the science behind Akin’s remarks:

“Part of the reason the Dems still control the Senate is because of comments made in Missouri by Todd Akin and Indiana by Mourdock were considered a little bit over the top ... Mourdock basically said ‘Look, if there is conception in the aftermath of a rape, that’s still a child, and it’s a child of God, essentially.’ Now, in Indiana, that cost him the election.”

Updated 12:50 pm ET: Democrats won the House popular vote – those who voted in House elections -- but only made modest gains and Republican retained control of the body.

Why? Redistricting was a big reason. Republicans controlled key governorships and state legislatures, winning several of those important, but out-of-the-spotlight races over the past few cycles.

And a Republican pollster says, “There’s no crying in redistricting.” That’s because this isn’t the first time this disparity has been seen. In fact, the tables were turned in the 1970s and 1980s.

Bill McInturff, the Republican pollster who conducts the NBC-WSJ poll with Democrat Peter Hart, notes in an email and three-page memo:

“Republicans captured 49.4% of the two-party vote for Congress in 2012, yet won 54% of the seats in the House. This gap between the Republican vote and the seats they won is on the high side, but certainly not without precedent over the past 40 years. If you began your career as a Republican trying to win the House in the 1970s and 1980s, you would adopt, as I do, the borrowed adage ‘there’s no crying in redistricting.’”

From the memo:

“During the Reagan sweep in 1980, Republicans essentially broke even in terms of the two-party vote cast (49%), yet were only able to win 44% of the seats…the same type five point gap being bemoaned today. Similarly, there was an especially large gap between the Republican percentage of the vote in 1990 versus the percentage of seats won (46% of the vote, 38% of the seats).”

According to the attached tables provided by McInturff, however, there has never been an instance -- aside from 2012 -- in which one party won a majority of the popular vote, but not a majority of seats. 1980, as noted above, came the closest.

"Yes," that's true, McInturff said in a follow-up email, "because the 1970s and 1980 lines were so massively unfair ... and, of course, there's probably no question Republicans, on balance, 'baked in' an important advantage with this set of lines around the country."

McInturff concludes:

“Finally, having said that, there is a legitimate public policy discussion about the merits of there being a relationship between the votes cast by the American electorate and the composition of the House. Don’t worry. Forty years of data suggest if a party is able to convince a comfortable majority of Americans to vote for their congressional candidates, they will be rewarded with a majority of the House. As always, though, a relative tie goes to the existing party in power.”

McInturff as well as the liberal think tank, the Center for American Progress, says with this current redistricting map, Democrats would like need to win by about 7 percentage points to take back the House.

From "47 percent" to "oops" to "you didn't build that," the 2012 campaign was full of memorable moments that arguably changed the trajectory and rhetoric of the presidential race, influencing conversations about the role of government, the essentials of leadership, and the direction of the country.

Aaaaaand then there was all the other stuff.

The first campaign in which ideological scuffles were waged on Twitter, the 2012 race was noteworthy for its moments of pure silliness, when there was little observers could do except use their 140-character allotments for snarky pronouncements like "#headdesk."

So, with apologies to the Happy Days episode that birthed the phrase "to jump the shark," here's our list of the Top 10 "shark-jumping" political moments of 2012:

10. The Drudge Report floats Petraeus for VP.  Despite overwhelming evidence -- even more overwhelming in retrospect -- that the now-resigned CIA director was hardly a slam-dunk to be on the GOP ticket, reporters scurried frantically to shoot down a Drudge Report siren floating Gen. David Petraeus for Mitt Romney's vice presidential pick. The news was sourced to "a top fundraiser" who heard it "whispered" by Barack Obama. The Romney-aligned conservative news hub suggested the once-revered general (who resigned after the election in the wake of revelations of an extra-marital affair) after it plugged an exclusive scoop on the implausible pick of Condi Rice for the job.

9. Newt Gingrich is bitten by a penguin at the zoo. While technically still a presidential candidate -- but long after the sheen of his surprise January victory in the South Carolina GOP primary had faded -- it wasn't unusual to hear tales of Newt Gingrich's passion for zoology during the spring of 2012. An April incident at the San Diego Zoo offered LOL-worthy headlines when the former speaker was nipped on the finger by a Magellanic penguin. Hounded for confirmation, Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond dutifully vowed that the Band-Aid-prompting injury would not end the candidate's love of animals, saying "Newt is a zoo fan. He will be back."

8. Everyone meta-argues about Big Bird. Asked during the first presidential debate for areas where he would cut federal spending, GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney pointed to the (relatively minuscule) funds received by PBS, even while asserting earnestly that "I like Big Bird." After a particularly lackluster debate performance by President Obama, the statement offered Romney foes a welcome peg for attacks, including a parody ad in which the goofy avian puppet was derided as a "big, yellow, a menace to our economy." Republicans, in turn ridiculed the Obama campaign's fixation with the Sesame Street protagonist as frivolous, and an exasperated PBS requested that the ad be taken down.

7. A stop at Chick-Fil-A becomes a political act. Liberal lovers of waffle fries faced a difficult choice this summer when Chick-Fil-A president Dan Cathy voiced criticism of same-sex marriage. While Mitt Romney didn't bite, other Republican politicians leveraged the story, flocking to the fast-food joint to show their support for Cathy's socially conservative views. Sarah Palin, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, and then-VP hopeful Tim Pawlenty all publicly backed the franchise that launched the "Eat Mor Chikin" campaign, while some Democratic pols threatened to keep new stores from opening and pilloried the restaurant with labels like "hate chicken." The chain later - ahem -- "waffled" on its stance, agreeing to stop funding groups that fight same-sex marriage.

6. Romney not-really-jokingly laments not being Latino. The "47 percent" remarks were the enduring headline out of Mitt Romney's leaked fundraiser remarks, but the nominee also raised some eyebrows when he joked to attendees that he would have been much more likely to win the presidency if his father had been Mexican. "He was born in Mexico… and had he been born of, uh, Mexican parents, I’d have a better shot at winning this," Romney said to reported crickets from the audience of donor heavyweights. "But he was unfortunately born to Americans living in Mexico. He lived there for a number of years. I mean, I say that jokingly, but it would be helpful to be Latino.” Si se puede!

5. The Trump "October surprise." Remember this? Donald Trump sent the Twitter machine into a frenzy after he promised a "revelation" that would derail the president's re-election efforts. The rumor mill indicated that the bombshell could be some kind of divorce records from Obama's past, a claim which turned out to be far more potentially interesting than Trump's actual revelation -- which was to offer $5 million to the charity of Obama's choice in exchange for the president's college and passport records. The news dud served to remind voters of Romney's tortured embrace of the coiffed billionaire in a February endorsement, which Romney accepted by deadpanning, "There are some things you can't imagine ever happening in your life. This is one of them."

4. Spandexed Rick Perry tweets he's staying in 2012 race. The morning after the Iowa caucuses, political reporters and Perry staff were making arrangements to attend the Texas governor's inevitable dropout press conference when a tweet from the governor's official account pictured Perry in running attire giving a thumbs up -- with the text "Here we come South Carolina!!!" Some close aides initially believed the vow to stay in the race was a hoax. Frazzled reporters chased the candidate to a hotel hallway where they got their first in-person confirmation of the news from Perry's wife Anita, in the form of her declaration that "I LOVE grits!"

3. Joe Biden poses with biker chick. Relentlessly parodied as a dopey muscle-car enthusiast by joke newspaper The Onion, Vice President Joe Biden finally appeared to be merging with his own caricature when he tried to make friends with a trio of bikers at an Ohio diner. The result: an AP photo of Biden nuzzling a grinning female rider as two male companions looked on with impossible-to-describe-in-print facial expressions of annoyance, disbelief and wonderment. (It didn't help that the photo was published within hours of a picture of a Barack Obama being aerially bear-hugged by a large Florida admirer.)

2. Eastwooding. After his appearance in a stark, full page pro-Chrysler ad dubbed "Halftime in America," some Republicans accused Clint Eastwood of being an Obama backer. That presumably gave the gravelly-voiced star's endorsement of Mitt Romney even more heft going in to the Republican National Convention, when no organizers questioned the famous "Dirty Harry" actor as to exactly what he might say on stage. Republicans, along with a primetime audience of millions, looked on with (at best) bewildered amusement and (at worst) horror as Eastwood wandered around the stage spouting insults at an empty chair meant to symbolize the president. Eastwood later admitted -- in the biggest scoop to date for his hometown paper The Carmel Pine Cone -- that he came up with the idea to malign available furniture while in the green room before the speech. "[The Romney team] vets most of the people, but I told them, ‘You can’t do that with me, because I don’t know what I’m going to say,’” Eastwood recalled to the Pine Cone.

1. The "war on women." Little did Hilary Rosen know when she dinged Ann Romney's career choices on CNN that she was touching off a seven-month battle that would be dubbed by both sides as a partisan "war on women." “His wife has actually never worked a day in her life,” said Rosen, a political consultant who advises the Democratic National Committee, launching a rhetorical spitball/Twitter war that continued in various incarnations until  Election Day. Obama campaign aides scrambled to condemn the remark as Ann Romney shot back that she “made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was hard work."

That opening volley continued through the end of the campaign, with Republicans and Democrats each painting the other group as baby-hating suffrage opponents eager to confine the brightest of women to lady-prisons of convenient stereotypes.

Both sides pointed to issues ranging from the arguably legitimate (economic policies affecting families, contraceptive policies) to the unrepeatable (Rush Limbaugh calling Sandra Fluke a "slut")  to the absurd (demanding that the other side disown the endorsement of a musical artist with unpleasant lyrics about women.)

The silliness may have been best encapsulated by Reince Priebus, who described the back-and-forth thusly: "If the Democrats said we had a war on caterpillars and every mainstream media outlet talked about the fact that Republicans have a war on caterpillars, then we'd have problems with caterpillars."

For which he had to apologize.

Editor’s note: Over the next few days, First Read will be recapping the year in politics. Yesterday, we looked at the Top 10 political events of 2012. Today: the year in politics – in quotes.  "

JANUARY
Mitt Romney: “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.” (Jan. 9)

Rick Perry: “There is a real difference between a venture capitalist and a vulture capitalist.” (Jan. 10)

Gingrich: “No… [applause], but I will. I think the destructive, negative, vicious nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office, and I am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that.” -- Asked during a CNN debate if he’d like to respond to allegations by an ex-wife that he wanted an open marriage. (Jan. 19)

Gingrich: “By the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the moon, and it will be American.” (Jan. 25)

FEBRUARY
Romney: “I’m not concerned about the very poor.” (Feb. 1)

Romney: “There are some things that you just can’t imagine happening in your life.  Uh, this is one of them.” [Laughter] – on Donald Trump’s endorsement. (Feb. 2)

Romney: “I was a severely conservative Republican governor.” (Feb. 10)

Foster Friess (Santorum supporter): “You know, back in my days, they used Bayer aspirin for contraception. The gals put it between their knees, and it wasn’t that costly.” (Feb. 16)

Romney: “It seems right here, the trees are the right height. I like seeing the lakes. I love the lakes.” (Feb. 17)

Romney: “Ann drives a couple of Cadillacs actually.” (Feb. 24)

Rick Santorum: “President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob!” (Feb. 25)

Romney: “I have some friends who are NASCAR team owners.” (Feb. 26)

Romney: “I like those fancy raincoats you bought, really sprung for the big bucks.” (Feb. 26)

MARCH
Romney: “The best thing I can do for you is to tell you to shop around.” (March 5)

Romney: “I’ve got a lot of good friends — the owner of the Miami Dolphins and the New York Jets — both owners are friends of mine.” (March 12)

Eric Fehrnstrom (Romney adviser): “Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again.” (March 21)

Romney: "Russia, this is, without question, our number one geopolitical foe.” (March 26)

President Barack Obama:  “This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.” – to Russian President Medvedev. (March 26)

APRIL
Ann Romney: “Well, you know, I guess we better unzip him and let the real Mitt Romney out because he is not!” – Asked by a radio host about the criticism that her husband “comes off stiff.” (April 2)

Hilary Rosen (Democratic strategist): “Guess what? His wife has actually never worked a day in her life.” (April 11)

Romney: “I’m not sure about these cookies. They don’t look like you made them. Did you make them? You didn’t, did you? They came from the local 7-11, bakery, or wherever.” (April 17)

Biden: “I promise you, the president has a big stick. I promise you.” (April 2012)

MAY
Ann Romney: “Stiff, he’s not, he’s funny… There’s a wild and crazy man inside there.” (May 1)

Vice President Joe Biden: “I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women, and heterosexual men and women marrying another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties." (May 9 on Meet the Press)

Obama: “He probably got out a little bit over his skis, but out of generosity of spirit. … Would I have preferred to have done this in my own way, in my own terms, without, I think, there being a lot of notice of everybody? Of course. But all's well that ends well." (May 10)

JUNE
Romney: "I met a guy yesterday, seven feet tall. Yeah, handsome, great big guy, seven feet tall! Name is Rick Miller—Portland, Oregon. And he started a business. Of course you know it was in basketball. But it wasn't in basketball! I mean, I, figured he had to be in sport, but he wasn't in sport." (June 6)

Obama: “The private sector is doing fine.” (June 8)

Obama: “The highest Court in the land has now spoken. We will continue to implement this law. And we'll work together to improve on it where we can. But what we won’t do -- what the country can’t afford to do -- is refight the political battles of two years ago, or go back to the way things were.” – on the health-care law being upheld, 5-4, by the Supreme Court with Chief Justice Roberts being the deciding vote. (June 28)

JULY
Romney: “Lemon. Wet. Good.” -- asked how his lemonade was. (July 4)

House Speaker Boehner: “The American people probably aren’t going to fall in love with Mitt Romney.” (July 7)

Obama: “If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” (July 14)

Romney: “There are a few things that were disconcerting.” – Romney on the London Olympics security preparations. (July 26)

David Cameron: “Of course it’s easier if you hold an Olympic games in the middle of nowhere.” (July 26)

Romney: “Culture makes all the difference. Culture makes all the difference.” – on why the Palestinian economy is worse than Israel’s. (July 30)

AUGUST
Romney: “I’m not a business.” – on why he’s not releasing his taxes. (Aug. 9)

Romney: “Join me in welcoming the next president of the United States, Paul Ryan." – introducing Ryan as his vice presidential pick. Romney came back on stage: "Every now and then I'm known to make a mistake. I did not make a mistake with this guy. But I can tell you this. He's going to be the next vice president of the United States." (Aug. 11)

Paul Ryan: "I got a new bow last year. … Oh, I got a new chainsaw. It was nice. It's a Stihl." -- asked by People magazine what his last splurge was. (Aug. 12)

Biden: "They gonna put y’all back in chains." (Aug. 14)

Romney: “The fascination with taxes I paid I find to be very small minded.” – at a news conference he arranged on Medicare using a white board. (Aug. 16)

Todd Akin: “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” (Aug. 19)

Ryan: “I’m a Catholic deer hunter. I am happy to be clinging to my guns and to my religion.” (Aug. 21)

Biden: “I’ve got a little bumper sticker for you: Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.” (Aug. 21)

Ann Romney: “I love you womeeen!!!!” (Aug. 28)

Ann Romney: “Tonight, I want to talk to you about love.” (Aug. 28)

Chris Christie: “Tonight, we’re going to choose respect over love.” (Aug. 28)

Neil Newhouse (Romney pollster): “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.” (Aug. 28)

Romney: “Four years from the excitement of the last election, for the first time, the majority of Americans now doubt that our children will have a better future. It is not what we were promised.” – Romney acceptance speech. (Aug. 30)

Clint Eastwood: “What? What do you want me to tell Romney? I can't tell him to do that. That. He can't do that to himself.” (Aug. 30)

SEPTEMBER
Bill Clinton:  “Listen to me, now. No president — no president, not me, not any of my predecessors, no one could have fully repaired all the damage that he found in just four years.” And: “It takes some brass to attack a guy for doing what you did.” – DNC convention speech. (Sept. 5)

Jennifer Granholm: “Well, in Romney's world, the cars get the elevator; the workers get the shaft.” (Sept. 5)

Obama: “America, I never said this journey would be easy, and I won't promise that now. Yes, our path is harder, but it leads to a better place.” – convention speech (Sept. 6)

Romney: “It’s disgraceful that the Obama administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.” (Sept. 12)

Romney: “I think the best answer is as little as possible.” -- when asked what he wears to bed at night. (Sept. 14)

Romney: “Middle income is $200… 250,000 or less.” (Sept. 14)

Romney: “There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it.” (Sept. 17 – when the video was first unveiled)

Benjamin Netanyahu: “Where should a red line be drawn? A red line should be drawn right here.” – speaking before the U.N. talking about Iran’s capability for a nuclear weapon and using a red marker to draw a red line on a diagram of a bomb. (Sept. 27)

OCTOBER
Romney: “And congratulations to you, Mr. President, on your anniversary. I’m sure this was the most romantic place you could imagine — here with me!” -- first presidential debate. (Oct. 3)

Romney: “Look, I’ve got five boys. I’m used to people saying something that’s not always true, but just keep on repeating it and ultimately hoping I will believe it.” – first presidential debate. (Oct. 3)

Romney: “I like PBS, I love Big Bird. I actually like you, too.” -- to moderator Jim Lehrer of PBS in the first presidential debate. (Oct. 3)

Obama: “Well, Jim, I want to thank you, and I want to thank Governor Romney, because I think was a terrific debate.” (Oct. 3)

Biden: “With all due respect, that's a bunch of malarkey.” (Oct. 11)

Brad Sherman: “Do you want to get into this?” -- to fellow Democrat Howard Berman with whom he was competing for a redistricted congressional seat. (Oct. 11)

Romney: “I went to a number of women’s groups and said: ‘Can you help us find folks,’ and they brought us whole binders full of women.” (Oct. 16)

Obama: “Please proceed, governor.” (Oct. 16)

Tagg Romney: “You want to jump out of your seat and rush down to the debate stage and take a swing at him.” – said of President Obama after a debate in which the two candidates exchanged verbal barbs and got in each other’s space. (Oct. 18)

Obama: “Obviously, I had an off-night.” – to Jon Stewart in reference to his first debate performance. (Oct. 19)

Obama: “Well, governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets.” (Oct. 22)

Richard Mourdock: “Life is that gift from God. And even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.” (Oct. 23)

Obama: “If you say you love American cars in the debate, but you wrote an article called ‘Let Detroit Go Bankrupt,’ you might have Romnesia.” (Oct. 23)

Obama: “The second thing I'm confident we'll get done next year is immigration reform. And since this is off the record, I will just be very blunt. Should I win a second term, a big reason I will win a second term is because the Republican nominee and the Republican Party have so alienated the fastest-growing demographic group in the country, the Latino community.” (Oct. 24)

Romney: “The President's campaign has a slogan: it is ‘forward.’ But to the 23 million Americans struggling to find a good job, these last four years feel a lot more like ‘backward.’ We cannot afford four more years like the last four years." – Romney economic speech (Oct. 26)

Christie: “The president has been all over this and he deserves great credit” – on the response to Hurricane Sandy (Oct. 31)

NOVEMBER
Obama: “Don't boo. Vote! Voting is the best revenge.” (Nov. 4)

Romney: “I pray that the president will be successful in guiding our nation.” – Romney concession speech (Nov. 6-7)

Obama: “Tonight, in this election, you, the American people, reminded us that while our road has been hard, while our journey has been long, we have picked ourselves up, we have fought our way back, and we know in our hearts that for the United States of America the best is yet to come.” – Obama victory speech (Nov.6-7)

Romney: “The president’s campaign focused on giving targeted groups a big gift — so he made a big effort on small things. … You can imagine for somebody making $25,000 or $30,000 or $35,000 a year, being told you’re now going to get free health care, particularly if you don’t have it, getting free health care worth, what, $10,000 per family, in perpetuity, I mean, this is huge.” (Nov. 14)

Stu Stevens: “[H]e was a charismatic African American president with a billion dollars, no primary and media that often felt morally conflicted about being critical.” (Nov. 28)

DECEMBER
Tagg Romney: “He [Mitt Romney] wanted to be president less than anyone I’ve met in my life. He had no desire to . . . run.” (Dec. 22)

Editor's note: Over the next few days, First Read will be recapping the year in politics. Our first entry: what we consider the Top 10 political events of 2012.

1. "47 percent": A surreptitiously recorded video of Mitt Romney, released on Sept. 17 by Mother Jones, didn't lose the presidential contest for the Republicans. But it cemented the impression of Romney that the Obama campaign wanted to portray -- as a multi-millionaire whose business history and policies ignored average Americans.

In the video, from a closed-door fundraiser in May, Romney tells wealthy donors that the "47 percent" of the country that doesn't pay income taxes, that is dependent on government, and that believes "they are victims" will vote for President Obama no matter what. He adds in the video: "My job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

Romney first responded that his comments were "not elegantly stated," and he later said they were "completely wrong." But the damage was done. The Obama campaign and its allies pounced on the "47 percent" comments in numerous TV ads (like here and here). In the end, according to the exit polls, 53 percent of voters said that Obama was more in touch with people like them than Romney was, and another 53 percent said Romney's policies would generally favor the rich. The irony: Romney won just 47 percent of the popular vote.

2. The Democratic convention: This year was another reminder that political conventions do matter in presidential contests. After the Democratic convention in Charlotte, N.C. -- which featured well-received speeches by First Lady Michelle Obama, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, former President Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama -- the Dem ticket got a noticeable bump in state and national polls. The convention also served as a turning point for Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, who delivered a primetime address. (Before the speech, Warren was trailing in most polls; afterward, she jumped into the lead.)

By comparison, Romney received little to no bump in the polls after the GOP convention in Tampa, Fla. Indeed, Romney's own acceptance speech was overshadowed by Clint Eastwood's impromptu -- and bizarre -- remarks to an empty chair (which he pretended to be Obama) on the convention's final night.

3. The Denver debate: After the convention season and after the "47 percent" video surfaced, Romney's presidential candidacy hung by a thread -- polls showed Obama pulling away and news reports uncovered turmoil within the Romney camp. But just about two weeks later, Romney would have his strongest moment of the presidential campaign. At the first presidential debate, in Denver on Oct. 3, Romney shined and Obama fell flat. Afterward, Romney began to gain on Obama in national and some state polls, and his campaign touted that it had the momentum in final weeks, even after Obama was viewed as the victor in the other two debates. But in the end, the Denver debate wasn't enough to erase Romney's rough summer and September.

4. The Supreme Court's health-care decision: Here's a thought exercise: Imagine if the U.S. Supreme Court had struck down Obama's landmark health-care law. Such a ruling would have deprived the president of his signature domestic achievement, and would have allowed Romney to charge that Obama wasted his first year in office on an unconstitutional endeavor. It's impossible to know how the presidential election would have turned out after that hypothetical outcome, but it's safe to say that such a ruling probably wouldn't have helped Obama.

In the end, however, the Supreme Court upheld the health-care law by a narrow 5-4 majority on June 28. And the ruling served as a sort of turning point in the summer: Before, Obama's campaign was struggling (the news from the monthly jobs reports were disappointing, and Republicans pounced on Obama's "the private sector is doing fine" remarks). After, it was the Romney campaign that struggled (the scrutiny over Romney's tax returns and work at Bain Capital, plus the mixed reviews of his overseas trip to Europe and the Middle East).

5. Hurricane Sandy: Here's a second thought exercise: What if Hurricane Sandy had never pummeled the East Coast in late October and hadn't allowed the incumbent Obama to demonstrate presidential leadership or bipartisanship (with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie) after a natural disaster? While the hurricane probably wasn't a decisive event in the election -- Romney's momentum after the first debate was already waning -- it helped Obama. According to the exit polls, 42 percent said the president's response to Sandy was important in their vote, and Obama won those voters by a 68 percent-to-31 percent margin.

Larry Downing / Reuters

President Barack Obama and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie talk with survivors of Hurricane Sandy in a community center while touring damaged areas in Brigantine, N.J, Oct. 31, 2012. Obama and Christie put aside partisan differences to visit storm-swamped parts of New Jersey together and oversee relief efforts after the devastation of the storm Sandy.

6. "Legitimate rape": If the "47 percent" tape cemented the impression of Romney as an out-of-touch multi-millionaire, then Rep. Todd Akin's "legitimate rape" remark put an exclamation mark on the Republican Party's struggles with female voters. In an interview on Aug. 19, Akin -- the GOP nominee in Missouri's Senate contest -- explained his opposition to abortion in cases of rape, saying that pregnancies by rape are rare. "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

Akin went on to lose his race against endangered incumbent Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill. (Republicans also lost another winnable Senate race, in Indiana, after the GOP nominee made another controversial comment on rape.) And in the presidential contest, Obama won female voters by 11 percentage points, 55 percent to 44 percent.

7. The Michigan primary: You might not remember it, but there was a time -- in February -- when it wasn't clear that Mitt Romney would be the GOP's presidential nominee. Back then, according to some polls, Romney was trailing Rick Santorum in the upcoming Feb. 28 Michigan primary. A loss in Romney's native state would have sent Republican leaders into a panic, and might have sparked a movement to draft another Republican into the race. In the end, however, Romney edged Santorum in Michigan by three percentage points, 41 percent to 38 percent, and he later went on to wrap up the GOP nomination.

8. The South Carolina primary: But there also was a time when it appeared that Romney would wrap up the nomination early. He won the Iowa caucuses by the narrowest of margins and then triumphed in New Hampshire's primary. A win in the next contest -- in South Carolina on Jan. 21 -- would have effectively ended the fight for the nomination and would have given Romney more months to prepare for a general-election fight against Obama.

But then came adversity for Romney: Newt Gingrich routed him in South Carolina's primary, and then it was determined that Santorum -- and not Romney -- had won in Iowa. Romney later regrouped in Florida and Michigan. But instead of the general election beginning in earnest in January or February, Romney didn't essentially clinch the GOP nomination until April, when Santorum suspended his campaign. 

9. Benghazi: On Sept. 11, attacks were launched on the U.S. embassy in Cairo, Egypt and a consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Obama administration officials gave the impression that an anti-Muslim video sparked both attacks. (And Romney was criticized for firing off a statement blasting the embassy in Egypt for condemning the "efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims.")

But as it was later determined, the Benghazi attack was a coordinated terrorist act, which resulted in the deaths of four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya. Under intense GOP criticism for initially linking the Benghazi attack to the anti-Muslim video, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice in December withdrew her name from consideration of being Obama's next secretary of state.

10. The Ryan pick: Not since John F. Kennedy tapped Lyndon Johnson to be his running mate in 1960 has a VP selected greatly impacted a presidential contest, at least in a positive way for the ticket. And that streak held true in 2012 after Romney picked Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan on Aug. 11 to be his VP sidekick -- Romney, after all, ended up losing Wisconsin by seven points, 53 percent to 46 percent. But the selection ended months of speculation about Romney's eventual choice, and it further elevated Ryan into the national spotlight.

“Although presidential campaigns traditionally pay the up-front cost for journalists traveling with the candidates and bill their employers later, news organizations have been shocked in recent weeks to get sky-high bills from Mitt Romney's camp for the cost of feeding reporters on the trail,” the New York Daily News writes. “In a letter to the Romney campaign published by Buzzfeed, nine major news companies said the bills they received ‘far exceed typical expenses on the campaign trail.’ The tab for one day in October included $812 per reporter to eat a single meal and then ‘hold’ in a rented space before going to another event. On other days in October, the members of the cash-strapped news industry were charged $461 and $345 apiece for a single meal and seat in a ‘holding room.’”

And: “One Romney aide told Buzzfeed, which also signed the letter, that the campaign wasn’t trying to rip off the media, but had simply mismanaged its expenses.”

Buzzfeed: “One campaign aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the bills were not artificially inflated, but rather the product of a generally mismanaged campaign. The aide said the advance team — which was tasked with arranging meals and accommodations for the press — failed to communicate with other elements of the campaign and consistently spent more money than necessary. Indeed, reporters on the trail grew accustomed to having five or six catered meals offered to them every day, with long tables full of food awaiting them at each campaign stop. The meals often went untouched and were sometimes consumed by campaign staff. It remains unclear whether those aides shouldered some of the costs of the meals.”

Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s approval rating dipped to just 36% in the latest Quinnipiac poll. He’s up for reelection in 2014.

The Detroit Free Press: “With the shock of the mass shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school still fresh on the nation's conscience and protests and vigils by clergy and others closer to home, Gov. Rick Snyder vetoed a bill Tuesday that would have allowed Michigan gun owners with extra training to carry concealed weapons in schools, day care centers, churches and stadiums.”

All across the country, electors (to the Electoral College) officially cast their ballots for President Obama or Mitt Romney. It was pretty standard in California, Florida, Washington, Texas, Oklahoma, Nevada, South Carolina, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, for example.

Most noted the history being made. One elector in Florida, even said, “I will quote loosely Vice President Biden: ‘This is a…uh…big deal.'”

In Arizona, though, a different story: “Arizona's 11 Republican electors formally cast their votes Monday for Mitt Romney - but not before three of them, including the state party chairman, said questions remain about whether President Obama is a natural-born citizen,” the Arizona Daily Star writes. “ ‘I'm not satisfied with what I've seen,’ said Tom Morrissey, head of the Arizona Republican Party, after signing the formal paperwork to cast his Electoral College vote for Romney. ‘I think for somebody in the president's position to not have produced a document that looks more legitimate, I have a problem with that,’ Morrissey said.”

KTAR: “College member Don Ascoli, who recently finished serving as Republican Party chairman in Gila County, said he didn't think Obama was ‘properly vetted as a legitimate candidate for president.’” More: Secretary of State Ken Bennett, who presided over the Electoral College ceremony, later said he did not share the views of the three college members, but he said the college members were exercising their First Amendment rights. Gov. Jan Brewer, who observed the ceremony, later said she disagreed with the three college members' opinions. ‘The bottom line is everybody is entitled to their own opinion. I happen to disagree,’ she said. Brewer in 2011 vetoed a bill passed by the Arizona Legislature to require Obama and other presidential candidates to prove their U.S. citizenship before their names could appear on the state's ballot.”

And in Oregon, one was missing.

Oh, so NOW it’s because Mitt Romney didn’t focus on Solyndra enough. OK… Ousted Rep. Cliff Stearns, who had been the GOP’s “point man” on Solyndra: "The president somehow was able to sidestep [Solyndra], and Romney did not make it an issue. Just like Benghazi. Benghazi was a great issue for Romney, but he did not use it as well as I thought he could."

It's a voting bloc as big as Hispanics, 18- to 24-year-olds and the staunchest pro-lifers, and it broke for the Democratic presidential nominee by a margin of 44 points. 

"Religiously Unaffiliated Voters For Obama" doesn't really have a bumper-sticker catchiness to it, but it rang true in 2012. 

Larry Downing / Reuters

President Barack Obama acknowledges supporters while addressing his election night victory rally in Chicago, November 6, 2012.

Voters who say they don't have a specific affiliation with a particular religion -- increasingly referred to with the minimalist moniker "the nones" --  made up 12 percent of the electorate in 2012 and 2008, a share that has more than doubled since 1980 and is up by 3 percent since 2000. Even more, 17 percent of 2012 voters said they never attend church. 

Pew study: 'Nones' on the rise

"This is a big group, it's a growing group, and it's politically a pretty important and consequential group in that the religiously unaffiliated are one of the strongest Democratic constituencies in the population," said Greg Smith, senior researcher at the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion and Public Life. 

And there are many more who haven't shown up to the polls. In a new study, Pew found that in 2012, nearly one in five survey respondents nationwide classified themselves as "atheist," "agnostic" or "nothing in particular." 

All of that adds up to a substantial chunk of the American public in a country that just nominated (but didn't elect) its first non-Protestant presidential ticket this year. The unaffiliated bloc is comparable with the share of the electorate made up by either black or Hispanic voters. They make up nearly a quarter of Democratic or Democratic-leaning voters. In 2008, they were as reliable a constituency for Barack Obama as white evangelical Protestants were for John McCain.

That's not to say that the Democratic Party has gone out of its way to court them. 

Lauren Anderson Youngblood, spokesperson for the Secular Coalition for America -- which lobbies on behalf of atheists, agnostics and other "nontheistic" citizens -- says that Democrats have been, at best, confused about how to reach out to non-believers, if not completely dismissive of the "nones" as a group. 

"If you want to reach out to someone, you will. If you want to work for their vote, you will," she said. "We're still a very stigmatized community that people don't necessary want to be associated with because the word 'atheist' has all of these negative connotations." 

Broderick Johnson, a senior adviser to the Obama campaign who concentrated on outreach to Catholics, said that while the campaign concentrated on messages of societal values that may appeal to unaffiliated voters, there was not a specific effort to court them as a unique constituency during the 2012 race. 

"I don't know of an effort which was predicated on the idea that there was a large group of people who are unaffiliated with any particular religion, and the way to them was to talk about a certain set of issues," he said. 

Data show that these voters' liberal affiliation comes primarily from social issues, like LGBT and abortion rights. Socially liberal but divided on issues of government and public life, religiously unaffiliated voters are far more likely than the general public to embrace same-sex marriage and to believe that all abortions should be legal.  

But at the same time, half of them also say that they prefer a smaller federal government that provides fewer public services. One in five calls their political ideology "conservative," and another 40 percent describe themselves as "moderate." 

"That segment really feels ignored," Youngblood said. "This is viewed as a very liberal movement, but there is also a segment that would identify as Republicans if it weren't for a lot of these social issues. It's really the intermingling of religion and government that's turning nontheistic Americans and religiously unaffiliated Americans off from the Republican Party." 

The formal institutions of secular thought aren't exactly over the moon with the current president, either. While it clearly favored Obama over Romney, the Secular Coalition for America gave Obama an overall "C" grade in its presidential "election scorecard" this year, with failing marks for the categories of "Discrimination by religious organizations receiving taxpayer funding" and "Role of religion in decision making as president." 

Those grievances reflect one of the common threads that link the "nones," even those who say they believe in God in some form: a distrust of institutionalized religion's exertion of political influence. 

Fully two-thirds of the group said that churches and other faith-based organizations are too involved in politics, and 70 percent say that religious institutions are "too concerned with money and power." 

Of course, money and power -- or at least the organizational structures that foster it -- are what make faith groups like evangelical Christians and Catholics ripe for targeting by campaigns that can gather data from churches about potential voters, plugging into the vast communication networks that unite congregants.

That's one advantage that unaffiliated voters, who have little formal structure outside of groups like the Secular Coalition, don't have. 

"It's hard to know how, organizationally, they might be reached or mobilized, " Smith said. "That's the question."