Politico has reported that Mitt Romney has sent an email to bundlers and large donors, asking them to participate in a summit for his son Tagg's investment firm, Solamere Capital, which the former Republican presidential nominee recently joined.

NBC News has learned the Solamere conference will take place from June 4-8 at Deer Valley's Stein Eriksen Lodge in Park City, Utah. But NBC has not confirmed Romney's participation.

Politico says that the cost to attend to attend the summit is $5,000. “In the span of four days, we will have a chance to hear from political, business and other thought leaders and spend time together enjoying a variety of outdoor activities,” Romney said in the email. “We are calling the event, Experts and Enthusiasts. As we only have capacity for a small group of people to be part of this gathering, invitations will be kept to a limited group of industry and thought leaders.”

Sources had told NBC that when Romney first accepted the job with Solamere -- also run by his campaign's top finance official Spencer Zwick -- he only wanted to be involved with advising on business transactions, not fundraising.

The Republican National Committee released an audacious set of recommendations on Monday aimed at revitalizing the party following the drubbing suffered by GOP candidates last November, calling for sweeping changes to the party's infrastructure, outreach and nominating process to contend for the White House in 2016.

The RNC's 100-page report, the "Growth and Opportunity Project," is the election autopsy ordered by Chairman Reince Priebus last fall.

Culled from more than 52,000 contacts with voters, party consultants and elected officials, it calls for drastic changes to almost every major element of the modern Republican Party.

"When Republicans lost in November, it was a wake-up call. And in response I initiated the most public and most comprehensive post-election review in the history of any national party," Priebus said Monday morning at the National Press Club. "As it makes clear, there’s no one reason we lost. Our message was weak; our ground game was insufficient; we weren’t inclusive; we were behind in both data and digital; our primary and debate process needed improvement."

In essence, the report argues for a more data-driven Republican Party in which the RNC assumes increased authority for party-building efforts.

The report calls for increased outreach to women, young voters and minorities — especially Hispanics. The document acknowledges the GOP’s policy on immigration has become a “litmus test” for what will be a key constituency necessary for the party’s success in the next four years and beyond.

"We are not a policy committee, but among the steps Republicans take in the Hispanic community and beyond, we must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform," the report says, nodding at other points to the bipartisan reform efforts currently before Congress. "If we do not, our Party’s appeal will continue to shrink to its core constituencies only."

The report also notes a growing generational divide on the issue of gay rights, calling the issue a "gateway" for young voters deciding whether to align with the GOP.

"We can't grow the party by division and subtraction," Priebus said during a question-and-answer session at the press club. "We can only build it by addition and multiplication."

But the report is hardly focused on social issues alone. Its top recurring theme arguably involves building a robust Republican data infrastructure, and applying a commitment to testing and analysis of almost every operation of the RNC.

Priebus is advised to hire a chief technology officer and digital officer by the end of April, and give them wide latitude to inform aspects of the party from fundraising to media strategy and messaging and beyond.

"Those teams will work together to integrate their respective areas throughout the RNC and provide a data-driven focus for the rest of the organization," Priebus said. "And they will be the new center of gravity within the organization."

The GOP's digital revamp — as with most of the other elements of the report — was prompted by the Obama campaign's far more sophisticated operation in 2012.

Handout / Getty Images

Chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus, appears on ''Face the Nation'' on March 17, 2013 in Washington, D.C.

Many of the reforms proposed by the Growth and Opportunity Project, however, will encounter stiff resistance in corners of the Republican Party and broader conservative movement — because of a deep distrust of the official GOP among the grassroots. 

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin encapsulated the sentiment during her speech on Saturday before the Conservative Political Action Conference. 

"Now is the time to furlough the consultants, and tune out the pollsters, send the focus groups home, and toss the political scripts," she said, "because if we truly know what we believe, we don't need professionals to tell us."

And some of the report's declarations are sure to ruffle feathers on the Right.

The report says bluntly at one point that "third-party groups that promote purity are hurting our electoral prospects," an indirect reference to groups like the Club for Growth, which has promoted challenges to Republicans regarded as more electable who are accused of transgressing against conservative principle.

A spokesman for the Club for Growth had no comment about the report, and Ari Fleischer, one of the leaders of the GOP project, argued that success would involve overcoming resistance from fellow Republicans.

"Successful parties learn and grow, and you do the best learning after you lose," he said at a press conference Monday morning.

The report also calls super PACs a "wild card" that threaten to weaken an eventual nominee due to the onslaught of negative advertising during primaries. (2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney suffered from this type of friendly fire during his slog to the nomination.)

The report calls for broader changes to the Republican primary system, too, especially as it relates to picking a presidential candidate. It calls for prohibiting primary debates before Sept. 1, 2015, and limiting the total number of debates to 10 or 12 -- and possibly docking delegates from candidates who ignore the rules.

The report also calls for holding the Republican National Convention in late June or July, necessitating that the primary process concludes between late April and mid-May. 

To accomplish that, the Growth and Opportunity Project recommends for a major — and likely contentious — overhaul to the primary calendar in which groups of states in a similar region would vote on the same date. The so-called "regional primary system" would follow traditional nominating contests in states like Iowa and New Hampshire, for which there would be an exception. 

Furthermore, the report recommends that Republicans ditch caucuses and conventions — venues in which conservative activists traditionally dominate — in favor of primaries for picking a nominee.

Among the report's assorted other recommendations:

• Establish a new "Growth and Opportunity Inclusion Council" tasked with reaching out to Hispanics, African Americans, Asians and Pacific Islanders, Native Americans and other minority communities;
• Commit an initial $10 million to improving outreach to minority communities;
• Set up an "RNC Celebrity Task Force of personalities in the entertainment industry" to attract young voters, and encourage Republican leaders to "participate in and actively prepare for interviews" on the Daily Show, the Colbert Report and other media aimed toward younger Americans;
• Place a greater emphasis on early voting in political strategy, messaging and budgeting;
• Invest in full-time field staff in states beginning at a much earlier point in election cycles;
• Convene a quarterly summit of Republican pollsters, ensure an accurate model of likely voters and turnout for polling, and recommend that GOP polls include a 25 percent subsample of respondents who can be reached by cell phone only;
• Explore making more efficient television advertising purchases, including possibly shifting resources away from paid media and toward organizational efforts and alternative methods of voter contact;
• Work with outside conservative groups (to the extent that it's legal) to better define different organizations' responsibilities;
• Encourage a well-funded conservative group (akin to Democrats' group, American Bridge) dedicated to full-time tracking and research of Democratic candidates;
• Expand the RNC's low-dollar fundraising program, and seek more efficient finance staffing;
• "Convince Congress to remove the biennial aggregate contribution limits," or, absent that, seek to increase the contribution limits for federal campaigns;
• Abolish the public financing system for presidential campaigns, including the matching funds program;
• Replace taxpayer funding of national party conventions with a system in which party committees could raise additional funds for the conventions;
• Allow party committees to raise additional funds to support the maintenance of their buildings and facilities.

This story was originally published on Mon Mar 18, 2013 6:58 AM EDT

Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney sought to pass the torch of leadership in the GOP to a new generation of conservatives in his first major public speech since losing last year's election. 

Romney, the failed candidate who challenged President Barack Obama in 2012, heralded a handful of Republican governors and his former running mate — Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan — as the next generation of GOP leadership. And he counseled party activists gathered here at the Conservative Political Action Conference to learn from his campaign's missteps. 

"It is up to us to make sure that we learn from my mistakes, and from our mistakes, so that we can win the victories those people and this nation depend upon," Romney told a warmly supportive CPAC crowd.

"It’s fashionable in some circles to be pessimistic about America, about conservative solutions, about the Republican Party," he added. "I utterly reject that pessimism. We may not have carried the day last Nov. 7, but we haven’t lost the country we love, and we haven't lost our way."

The former Massachusetts governor has kept a deliberately low profile following his lopsided loss versus Obama last November.

Following a campaign in which he was caricatured as out of touch — an image reinforced by his comments about "47 percent" of Americans depending upon government — many Republicans have quickly looked past Romney, who seemed at risk of becoming relegated to footnote status within the GOP.

But Romney used his speech to pledge to remain involved in Republican politics. 

"I am sorry that I will not be your president – but I will be your co-worker and I will stand shoulder to shoulder alongside you," he said. "In the end, we will win just as we have won before, and for the same reason: because our cause is just and it is right."

And Romney singled out a handful of Republicans in his speech who could become that next generation of winners.

He hailed South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (who introduced him), and Republican Govs. Rick Snyder (Mich.), Nathan Deal (Ga.), Scott Walker (Wis.), Susana Martinez (N.M.) and Brian Sandoval (Nev.), along with two governors who weren't invited to CPAC because of perceived apostasies against conservatism: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell.

Romney made few references, aside from Ryan, to leaders in Congress. Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Rand Paul, R-Ky., or Ted Cruz, R-Texas, did not earn a shout-out from the former GOP nominee.

CPAC has been an important gathering for Romney in the past. He twice won its influential straw poll, and ended his first bid for the Republican nomination at 2008's gathering. Romney called himself a "severely conservative" governor during his speech at CPAC in 2012, a description which Democrats turned against him in the general election.

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Former Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney acknowledges supporters as he speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference at National Harbor, Md., March 15, 2013.

Before this gathering of Republican stalwarts, Romney also weighed in on the looming question before the GOP, about whether it should moderate in some respects, or continue to hew to its conservative ideology. 

He argued that a "conservative vision can attract a majority of Americans and form a governing coalition of renewal and reform."

It's unclear whether or when the public might expect to hear from again from Romney, who recently joined the executive committee of one of his sons' investment companies. But he struck a wistful note upon reflecting about his failed campaign.

"Thank you again for your help and support along our journey," he said. "Ann and I will treasure these memories all the days of our lives."

This story was originally published on Fri Mar 15, 2013 1:59 PM EDT

Mitt Romney has one term as governor, two presidential campaigns, three elite university degrees, decades of church leadership and 25 years in the private sector under his belt -- but at age 66, sources close to him say he’s trying to figure out what to do with his life.

But does a trip to the Washington, D.C. area to address the conservative CPAC conference on Friday mean that Romney is interested in waging a political comeback? 

“No, no. No,” said his son, Tagg emphatically. “He doesn’t want to be back… He’s done.”

Former campaign spokesman Ryan Williams says that while Romney is not seeking to be back in the public eye by addressing the crowd, there was a specific reason for choosing to make his first public speech since losing the election in front of this particular group.  “The CPAC speech is a chance for him to thank the activists who helped him during his presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012.” 

“He took the appropriate amount of time off, and is returning now because of the personal significance this event has for him,” Williams added.

As First Read has pointed out, Romney finished either first or second in every CPAC straw poll since 2007. What’s more, he ended his 2008 presidential bid at the conservative conference. And Williams says he can still remember the disappointment in the air when Romney’s speech concluded in ‘08. 

But when he speaks on Friday, he will no longer do so as a current or potential presidential candidate. “He understands that there’s a new generation of Republican leaders now emerging to guide the party,” Williams said.  “He’s not a politician who craves the spotlight.”

Romney’s quiet exit from public life is reminiscent of another family member’s -- his father, former Michigan Gov. George Romney.  Both men went into politics in their mid-50s after lucrative careers in the private sector.  George Romney lost a bid for president in 1968 and served briefly in the Nixon administration and then went on to spend decades in charity work. 

"My dad wants to be involved in giving back as well, and he's still figuring out the best way to do that,” Tagg Romney said.  Romney has said he is planning on dedicating time to a foundation working with children, but he has also signed on as chairman of the executive committee of Solamere, Tagg’s investment firm based in Boston. Romney will serve in that role for one week a month, and spend the rest of his time continuing to float between Utah and California, where his other sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren live.

Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, will re-emerge into the public spotlight with a speech on Friday before the Conservative Political Action Conference, a gesture that has left some Republicans wondering why.

Romney will speak to activists for the first time since suffering a decisive defeat versus President Barack Obama in last fall’s election.

And he’ll do it before a gathering that has witnessed some of the most enduring moments of Romney’s political career: He twice won CPAC’s closely watched straw poll, he ended his 2008 campaign there, and it was at the confab in 2012 that Romney termed himself a “severely conservative” governor – a characterization which Democrats would turn back against him over the course of last year’s campaign.

And while it’s unknown what Romney might say during his speech on Friday, his speech before CPAC has prompted muted bewilderment among Romney’s own allies and conservative activists alike.

Brendan Smialowski / AFP - Getty Images

Former Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney arrives for lunch at the White House November 29, 2012 in Washington, D.C.

The former Massachusetts governor, who turned 66 on Tuesday, had kept a deliberately low profile after Nov. 6 of last year. Romney met once with Obama and gathered with campaign alumni this winter, but has otherwise avoided a spotlight that wasn’t always kind of him throughout last year’s campaign.

He’s only started to re-emerge in recent weeks. Romney gave an interview to “Fox News Sunday” earlier this month, and joined the executive board of his son Tagg’s investment company. Romney’s speech on Friday is his return to the public square, though it’s not clear how much interest conservatives will have in what he’ll have to say.

“What can he offer them?” asked Reagan biographer Craig Shirley. “Based on his interview I saw last weekend, not much. When he ran, he didn’t seem to understand much of this country.”

Romney allies also privately express their misgivings about Romney’s choice of CPAC to stage his national comeback. Its penchant for red-meat conservative rhetoric could make Romney still seem bitter about the election, and scuttle his chance to builder a broader, statesmanlike profile.

Moreover, Romney had occasionally struggled from a rocky relationship with conservatives throughout his campaign. Conservative critics had often been quick to criticize the Republican ticket for any perceived tack toward the political middle in the general election. And following the election, many of Romney’s detractors were unsparing in their criticism of the Republican nominee, in particular his surreptitiously-recorded comments about the “47 percent” of Americans whom he called dependent on government.

The former GOP nominee’s decision to speak at CPAC, though, likely reflects his close relationship with Al Cardenas, a supporter of Romney’s who heads the American Conservative Union, which organizes CPAC.

And not all Romney supporters think the decision to speak at CPAC is a bad idea, either.

“I think it’s a very good sign for the movement that Mitt Romney will be there,” said former Rep. Vin Weber, R-Minn., who served as an informal adviser to the Romney campaign. “A lot of people kind of expected that Romney would move back to the moderate Republican middle, which wouldn’t be a good thing for him – it would make him look cynical.”

Related:

Conservative struggle on immigration on display at CPAC

CPAC chair: Christie didn't 'deserve' an invite this year

Rand Paul calls GOP 'stale and moss covered'

This story was originally published on Fri Mar 15, 2013 5:20 AM EDT

Former Massachusetts governor and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has a new job.

NBC News has learned that Romney is returning to the private sector, joining his eldest son Tagg's investment firm, Solamere Capital, as chairman of the executive committee.

A person with knowledge of the deal tells NBC that Romney is planning to work with Solamere for one week a month. He will be advising on matters of private equity, and is not planning to fundraise at all for the firm.

An email is expected to go out tomorrow heralding the news to top investors.

Romney has held office space at Solamere, which is based in Boston, since the election.  However, he has mostly spent time with his family since the loss, and has not been officially involved in business matters.  His campaigns for president in 2008 and 2012 largely focused on his background in the business world.  Romney founded asset management company Bain Capital in 1984.

This story was originally published on Wed Mar 6, 2013 4:19 PM EST

The Boston Globe lead on the Romney interview: “‘It kills me’ to have lost to President Obama, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney said Sunday as he acknowledged a series of missteps in his race for the White House, including a failure to reach out to minority voters and his off-the-cuff remarks widely perceived as denigrating less fortunate Americans.”

What Romney said: “I look at what's happening right now, I wish I were there. It kills me not to be there, not to be in the White House doing what needs to be done.”

And of his 47% remarks, Romney actually said this: “What I said is not what I believe.”

USA Today: “In a wide-ranging interview that aired Sunday on Fox News, Romney chided President Obama for his dealings with congressional Republicans and for "playing politics" with the automatic budget cuts known as the sequester.”

The New York Times: “The Las Vegas Sands Corporation, an international gambling empire controlled by the billionaire Sheldon G. Adelson, has informed the Securities and Exchange Commission that it likely violated a federal law against bribing foreign officials.” More: “The company’s activities in mainland China, including an attempt to set up a trade center in Beijing and create a sponsored basketball team, as well as tens of millions of dollars in payments the Sands made through a Chinese intermediary, had become a focus of the federal investigation, according to reporting by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal in August.”

COLORADO: “Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., on Friday endorsed his one-time primary opponent, former state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, in his campaign for Colorado’s 6th District,” Roll Call writes.

KENTUCKY: National Journal has six signs Ashley Judd will run.

MASSACHUSETTS: Dan Winslow won the state GOP straw poll.

Meanwhile: “In a contentious meeting Friday, one of the state’s most politically powerful unions tried but failed to unite around a Democratic candidate for US Senate, dealing a blow to US Representative Stephen F. Lynch, a former ironworker and union leader.”

NEW YORK: “A ferry company will file suit against the Cuomo administration Monday, alleging it cut a ‘backroom’ deal to help the Maid of the Mist — the famous sightseeing boats at Niagara Falls — stay afloat,” The New York Daily News reports.

SOUTH CAROLINA: Political Wire: “Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) told New York magazine that he wanted his ex-wife, Jenny Sanford, to run his congressional campaign.”

VIRGINIA: National Journal wonders whether climate-change denier Ken Cucinelli (R) can win the governor’s race: “The Virginia governor’s race is the next front in the escalating war over global warming. The leading Republican candidate, state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, is an unapologetically partisan firebrand who has drawn the national spotlight for his crusade against the science of climate change.”

In his first interview since losing the 2012 presidential election, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney criticized President Obama’s early second-term performance and told Fox News Sunday that he’s still very much stung by his defeat.

“I look at what’s happening right now -- I wish I were there,” Romney told Chris Wallace, in a taping conducted last week in California. “It kills me not to be there, not to be in the White House doing what needs to be done.” 

Related: Boehner: 'I don't think anyone quite understands' how sequester gets resolved

Romney criticized President Obama’s handling of the budget showdown engulfing Washington, saying, “We don’t have to have gridlock settings one after the other, on issue after issue.”

Romney, who campaigned largely on a promise that he would cut the debt and federal spending, said that the current debate over the nation’s fiscal course, including the so-called “sequester” cuts, represents a missed opportunity.  “I see this as this huge opportunity, and it’s being squandered by politics, by people who are more interested in a political victory than they are in doing what’s right for the country. And it’s very frustrating.”

His wife, Ann Romney, conceded that she was not fully over the election defeat.  "It would have been much better for America, I believe, in my heart if he had been there right now."  When asked what she thought about President Obama’s campaign, Mrs. Romney told Wallace “I think it was a winning campaign. It worked.”  Wallace asked her if she thought the president’s campaign was fair, and she quickly responded that she did not, and that Obama had distorted public perception about her husband, who she called an “exceptional, wonderful person… that really, truly cared about the American people.”

Romney also allowed he made some mistakes during the course of his campaign.  One issue that plagued him at the end of his run was the release of a secretly recorded video showing him speaking at a fundraiser, in which he said that 47% of Americans would vote for the president no matter what, as they were “dependent on the government.”  He told Wallace that the statement was “very harmful” and “not what I believe.”

“There’s no question that hurt and did real damage to my campaign,” Romney admitted.

At the same time, however, Romney said that the “attractiveness” of the president’s health care plan was “a feature that we underestimated, particularly among”  low-income voters.

The couple were asked what it has been like to be out of the public eye, without the massive staff, security and press entourage that was with Romney's campaign at every move.  Ann Romney called the abrupt change an "adjustment, but it’s one that I think we did well."

Romney is making his first public address in two weeks, at C-PAC, a conservative group's annual conference in Washington, D.C.  He told Fox that while he was not expecting the Republican party to necessarily hang on of his every word going forward, he does still want to be involved. “I’m not going to disappear,” he said. “I care about America. I care about the people that can’t find jobs.”

The interview was filmed at the home of Romney's youngest son, Craig, in the San Diego area.  Craig and his wife, Mary, just welcomed newborn twins, Winston and Eleanor, two weeks ago, bringing the total number of grandchildren to twenty, a reality that was on the former candidate’s mind when discussing current events and his future plans.

“I care about my twenty grandkids – the kind of America they’re going to have. And sitting in the sidelines when so much is at stake is just not in my nature,” Romney told Wallace.

Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney will address CPAC, the annual gathering of conservative activists in Washington, Romney aides confirmed to NBC News.

"This is an opportunity for him to express his appreciation to supporters and friends," one Romney adviser told NBC News about the speech, news of which was first reported by National Review Online.

The speech marks a return to the public spotlight for the former Massachusetts governor, who's kept a low public profile since his loss to President Barack Obama on Nov. 6.

Romney addressed CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, last year; during his speech, he described himself as "severely conservative," a term turned back against him by the Obama campaign during the general election.

CPAC was also where Romney announced his withdrawal as a candidate for president in 2008.

One source said that the date of Romney’s speech has not yet been finalized  The conference runs from March 14 - 16.

Romney’s former running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., will also be addressing the crowd, as will his former rival for the 2012 Republican nomination, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.

“The thousands gathered at CPAC this year are eager to hear from the former 2012 GOP presidential candidate at his first public appearance since the elections,” said Al Cardenas, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, which organizes CPAC. “We look forward to hearing Governor Romney’s comments on the current state of affairs in America and the world, and his perspective on the future of the conservative movement.”

This story was originally published on Wed Feb 20, 2013 2:12 PM EST

Tagg Romney, son of former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, will not run in the special election to fill the vacant Senate seat in Massachusetts, a source close to Tagg tells NBC News.

The Boston Herald had reported Monday that Tagg was thinking about a run.

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.

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."