Lisa Lake / Getty Images

Justin Bieber, seen here on Dec. 5, made $55 million this year. Multiply that 39 times and you've got the money spent on two presidential campaigns in 2012.

Two political party candidates running for the presidency of the United States cost -- give or take -- about $2.142 billion. 

That's the newest dollar amount on the campaign, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission, showing that Barack Obama's campaign raised a total of $1.123 billion versus the Mitt Romney effort's $1.019 billion. 

The 10-digit figure comes after an election season in which both sides issued dire warnings of being outspent by the other. In a December 2011 pronouncement by Obama's campaign manager, the idea that the incumbent's re-election effort would hit a billion dollar fundraising total was roundly dismissed as "bulls****." 

For the benefit of campaign-weary voters -- especially those who endured endless e-mail appeals for dollars and wall-to-wall television advertising during the 2012 campaign -- here's a sampling of just what else $2.142 billion can get: 

-- 3,570 MINE-RESISTANT AMBUSH PROTECTED (MRAP) VEHICLES at an estimated cost of $600,000 per truck.

-- 577,202 PELL GRANTS at a value of the 2011-2012 average of $3,711 per recipient.

-- THE DALLAS COWBOYS (arguably the most valuable sports team in the world at $2.1 million, per Forbes.) 

-- 0.733 PERCENT OF THE DEFICIT ... for the first two months of fiscal year 2013, already at $292 billion.

-- DJIBOUTI (almost twice): The African nation's estimated gross domestic product in 2011 was $1.219 billion. 

-- 17 of EDVARD MUNCH'S 1895 PASTEL OF "THE SCREAM," which sold for $119.9 million at auction this May (okay, if there were 17 of them, it would have been cheaper, but you get the point.)  

-- ONE YEAR OF U.S. FOREIGN AID TO SUDAN, RWANDA, UGANDA, ETHIOPIA AND SOUTH AFRICA: Based on FY 2011 actual aid assistance funds.

-- 4.3 MILLION iPADs at a value of $499 each.

-- $17.60 FOR EVERY AMERICAN WHO VOTED FOR EITHER CANDIDATE, per The New York Time's most recent popular vote count.

-- 6 MILLION CHILDRENS' SCHOOL LUNCHES FOR ONE YEAR based on FY 2011 costs and recipients from the National School Lunch Program.

 -- THE ANNUAL SALARIES OF 73,456 BUS DRIVERS, based on a median pay of $29,160.

 -- THE ANNUAL SALARIES OF 11,333 FAMILY PRACTITIONERS OR PEDIATRICIANS, based on an average $189,000 annual base pay.

-- THE ANNUAL SALARIES OF 39 JUSTIN BIEBERS, who earned $55 million this year. 

Lois Romano writes of delusion in the 2012 campaign, including Stu Stevens thinking the Jeep ad helped them, that the Clint Eastwood speech was not a “big deal.” He also said he found it “very, very difficult” working with large media organizations to put on debates and that they shouldn’t be sponsoring them. Oh, it was Sandy’s fault, too.

The Obama campaign, meanwhile, didn’t realize it needed the help of Super PACs and thought not engaging in the first debate would have been a good idea.

This is all it costs apparently for status quo… “Campaign finance filings with the government now show that the cost of the 2012 U.S. presidential race has surpassed $2 billion, a new record,” AP writes.

“After vowing not to spend any money on behalf of Todd Akin's U.S. Senate bid, national Republicans pumped $760,000 into the Show-Me State just a few days before voters went to the polls,” Gannettwrites. “New campaign finance filings show that the National Republican Senatorial Committee sent $360,000 to the Missouri Republican Party's federal campaign committee on Nov. 1. And the NRSC —which is charged with electing GOP candidates to the Senate — sent another $400,000 on Nov. 2.”

PoliticalWire: “Mitt Romney's presidential campaign had $25.7 million left in the bank days after the Nov. 6 presidential election, Reuters reports.”

NEW YORK -- Less than a month after Mitt Romney's bid for the White House was suddenly snuffed out, his vice-presidential nominee and another top surrogate -- and fellow potential 2016 presidential candidate --delivered dueling speeches Tuesday that attempted to reframe Republican philosophy in what was a strikingly "Un-Romney" tone.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) spoke first at the dinner, followed by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who was receiving an award from the foundation of Ryan's mentor, former Rep. Jack Kemp. Ryan's speech -- his first public address since the Nov. 6th loss -- echoed themes from his late October speech in Ohio on economic mobility, but little else from the fall campaign.

"We have a compassionate vision based on ideas that work - but sometimes we don't do a good job of laying out that vision. We need to do better," Ryan said Tuesday night at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC, an almost word-for-word recitation of what he said Oct. 24th in Cleveland.

It was in that policy speech just two weeks before Election Day that a glimpse of what the post-election Wisconsin congressman would look like. The Ohio speech was Ryan's brainchild on the trail, reflecting his personal passion for the topic, and the idea of an upwardly mobile society that could be built on Republican principles.

The speech was the only one of its kind Ryan gave during the 80-plus days he was on Romney's ticket, and perhaps reflecting concerns that Ryan's remarks were off the nominee's messaging, Romney held his own event during Ryan's speech that day, which soaked up news coverage.

But speaking at the Kemp dinner Tuesday evening, the seven-term congressman launched himself back onto the national stage without Romney or his advisers guiding the message.

While Ryan praised Romney by name as someone who he felt "would have been a great president," he also very publically distanced himself from his former ticket mate’s "47 percent" remarks to donors at a private fundraiser last spring.

In the remarks, captured by surreptitious video recording, Romney claimed 47 percent of Americans are "dependent upon government" and would therefor only vote for President Barack Obama and his vision of a larger government.

"Both parties tend to divide Americans into 'our voters' and 'their voters,'” Ryan said. “But Republicans must steer far clear of that trap. We must speak to the aspirations and anxieties of every American. I believe we can turn the engines of upward mobility back on, so that no one is left out from the promise of America. But it's going to require a bold departure from the approach that government has taken for the last five decades."

If Ryan was cautiously backing away from the GOP ticket's rhetoric in his remarks, Rubio turned on his heel and walked away from it completely. In his 4,185 words of prepared remarks, two words were notably missing: Mitt and Romney.

The Florida senator and Tea Party darling focused his remarks on a segment of the population whose imagination the Romney campaign tried, and largely failed, to capture: the middle class.

Praising the large and stable middle class as something uniquely American, Rubio took aim at what he called a growing "opportunity gap" between those born into the middle class and those who are left to struggle from humbler means to try and get there.

"For those of us blessed with the opportunity to serve our country in government, one of the fundamental challenges before us is to find an appropriate and sustainable role for government in closing this gap between the dreams of millions of Americans and the opportunities for them to actually realize them," Rubio said, according to prepared remarks.

"The key to a vibrant middle class is an abundance of jobs that pay enough so that workers can provide for themselves and their families, enjoy leisure time, save for retirement, and pay for their children’s education, so they can grow up and earn even more than their parents."

Compare that to Romney's own comments on what he called the "opportunity society" he hoped to create, which focused more on the idea of government getting out of the way of business, which could lift up the American people.

"I will spend the next four years rebuilding the foundation of our opportunity society, led by free people and their free enterprises," Romney said in a speech in Wisconsin March 30th. "The only real solution to help communities devastated by lost jobs is more jobs. President Obama never seems to have understood the basic point that a plant closes when the business starts to lose money. So when the president attacks businesses for making money, and when his policies make it more difficult for businesses to make money, he's also attacking the very communities he wanted to help."

Romney's rhetoric toward the middle class focused, as did much of his campaign, on creating jobs. His five-point plan for creating jobs and helping the middle class touched on macro issues like controlling debt, supporting free trade and the amorphous phrase "champion small business."

That type of tone, appealing to the “job creators” more than those looking for work could have led to the polling data First Read noted this morning: Obama beat Romney by 10 points (53%-43%) on which candidate was more in touch with people like you, and, 53% said Romney's policies would favor the rich (compared to just 10% for Obama).

And while Rubio's policy prescriptions rarely deviated from Republican orthodoxy (he noted he opposed tax increases, and praised faith-based and community organizations as key to stemming "societal breakdown,") he used even his personal story -- and son-of-immigrants background -- to create a contrast with the former Republican standard bearer and paint the Republican Party as not just the party of the wealthy.

Whereas Romney infamously noted his well-to-do friends (NASCAR and NFL team owners have dubious mentions in the campaign record) and regularly highlighted successful entrepreneurs he had met on the campaign trail, Rubio closed with an anecdote of someone further down the income ladder.

"A few weeks ago, I was giving a speech at a fancy hotel in New York City,” he said. “When I arrived in the banquet hall, I was approached by a group of three uniformed employees from the hotels catering department. They had seen my speech at the Republican Convention, where I told the story of my father the ‘Banquet Bartender.’ And they had a gift for me. They presented me with this name tag, which says, ‘Rubio, Banquet Bartender.’ That moment reminded me that there are millions of Mario Rubios all across America today. They aren’t looking for a handout; they just want a job that provides for their families."

With both men striking similar notes it seems clear that at least these top Republican leaders see an inclusive message as a possible path back from the wilderness. Whether either of Tuesday's speakers will become the messenger, remains to be seen. 

Garrett Haake and Alex Moe were both 2012 presidential campaign embeds for NBC News. Haake covered Mitt Romney and Moe covered Paul Ryan and others.

Is the White House’s offer really a laughing matter?... It seems to be sending two messages to Republicans: 1) accepting the middle-class tax extension is less painful than the other proposals, and 2) you need to drag us to entitlement reform… Obama hits the road, delivering remarks on the fiscal negotiations in Hatfield, PA at 12:05 pm ET… Ted Cruz and 2016?... VA GOP blasts Bolling… And “Meet” to interview Geithner on Sunday.

*** A laughing matter? After Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s individual meetings yesterday with congressional leaders in the so-called “fiscal cliff” negotiations, Republicans leaked to reporters what the Obama White House is offering: 1) $1.6 trillion in tax increases and revenues, 2) a permanent end to Congress’ control of the debt limit, 3) additional stimulus of at least $50 billion, and 4) $400 billion in savings in Medicare and other programs to be worked out next year. Republican aides dismissed the offer as “unbalanced” and “unreasonable,” NBC’s Luke Russert notes. A House GOP aide adds to First Read that the $1.6 trillion is TWICE the revenue that President Obama campaigned on (by not extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy); that the debt-limit demand is a “pipe dream”; and that the revenue in the offer ($1.6 trillion) is four times greater than the spending cuts ($400 billion). The Weekly Standard even reports that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell “burst into laughter” after Geithner offered the plan.

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., center, accompanied by Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., left, and Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., gestures while speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Nov, 27, 2012.

*** The White House’s two messages: But is the offer really a laughing matter? From what we understand, the White House is sending two messages from the offer it presented yesterday. One, it’s trying to force House Republicans to pass the middle-class extension of the Bush tax cuts -- with the idea of punting everything else until next year. The message: Extending the middle-class tax cuts is MUCH LESS painful than the other revenue, the debt-limit demand, and additional stimulus. (Think Team Obama has learned from its past negotiating offers, when it started out negotiating from the middle?) Two, the White House is sending the message that if Republicans want entitlement reform, they’re the ones who will have to propose it. After all, the administration’s offer is very specific when it comes to taxes, but not specific at all when it comes to entitlements. In other words, the White House is saying: We’re dragging you to agreeing to higher revenues, but you guys need to drag us to entitlement fixes. It is very possible that the White House’s sky-high offer could blow up in its face. But it’s also quite possible that it forces Republicans to think long and hard about the middle-class extension and what they exactly want on entitlements.

*** Road trip! Meanwhile, as we’ve already reported on this week, Obama hits the road today, taking his fiscal message on the road to Hatfield, PA (the Philadelphia suburbs), where he speaks at 12:05 pm ET. Per the White House, the president will make his case “by visiting a business that depends on middle class consumers during the holiday season, and could be impacted if taxes go up on 98% of Americans at the end of the year. The president will tour and deliver remarks at The Rodon Group manufacturing facility, the sole American manufacturer for K’NEX Brands, a construction toy company whose products include Tinkertoy, K’NEX Building Sets and Angry Bird Building Sets.  The Rodon Group and K’NEX Brands, both third-generation family businesses, employ over 150 people at their Hatfield facilities.”

*** Ted Cruz and 2016? Wow, Sen.-elect Ted Cruz (R) hasn’t even been sworn in yet, and he’s already stoking 2016 speculation. Politico: “Texas Sen.-elect Ted Cruz advised the Republican Party to rebrand itself under a banner of ‘Opportunity Conservatism’ during a sweeping speech Thursday night that will only stoke speculation about a 2016 presidential run. Speaking before the conservative American Principles Project dinner at a downtown Washington hotel, Cruz said the GOP’s thumping in the 2012 elections was more the result of poor messaging and communication than the wrong ideology.” We’ve seen plenty of new senators come in with plenty of hype and attention (Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Marco Rubio), but those worked hard to keep expectations down. This is something else entirely…

*** VA GOP blasts Bolling: Yesterday, we wrote that Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling -- who had exited Virginia’s gubernatorial contest, meaning that Ken Cuccinelli would be the GOP’s nominee next year -- hadn’t closed the door to mounting an independent bid. And that in part explained this pretty stunning statement from the Virginia GOP chair: "I am disappointed by Lt. Governor Bolling's remarks over the past 48 hours... The proper venue for challenging a fellow Republican is during a nomination contest. Lt. Governor Bolling chose to suspend his campaign. I hope he will take his own words to heart and work to bring our Party together." Usually, that type of message is delivered through private channels, not via a press release. Bottom line: Bolling isn’t happy, and that’s a problem for the GOP.

*** On “Meet” this Sunday: Finally, NBC’s David Gregory interviews Treasury Secretary Geithner on “Meet the Press” this Sunday.

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Fitting for this campaign… “A power outage in Cambridge forced the cancellation of a forum tonight in which key advisers to President Obama and Republican Mitt Romney were to talk publicly about the recently completed general election campaign,” the Boston Globe reports.

Taegan Goddard: “However, I attended the off-the-record sessions on Wednesday and Thursday and will have quite a big to report once I'm allowed.”

The New Republic’s Scheiber gets his hands on the Romney campaign’s final poll numbers before the election in six key battleground states, which showed Romney ahead in Colorado and New Hampshire and tied in Iowa. And Scheiber spoke with Romney pollster Neil Newhouse to explain the numbers. “Newhouse and some of his colleagues have said that the biggest flaw in their polling was the failure to predict the demographic composition of the electorate. Broadly speaking, the people who showed up to vote on November 6 were younger and less white than Team Romney anticipated, and far more Democratic as a result. ‘The Colorado Latino vote was extraordinarily challenging,’ Newhouse told me. ‘As it was in Florida.’”

Charlie Cook on the poll the GOP should listen to.

Bloomberg/Business Week’s Josh Green reports on the millions of dollars those overly informal Obama campaign emails raised.

Conservatives are not happy with Stu Stevens.

The Boston Globe’s Johnson: “A senior Romney adviser said the two had a conversation that spanned global hot spots and their respective thoughts on innovation and the economy. The adviser said that Romney felt it was particularly important for the country to see the two candidates united after the sometimes acrimonious election campaign. The adviser, who requested anonymity to speak frankly, said Romney has never expressed any interest in a government role other than an elected position, and would more likely turn his attention to charitable or other civic works.”

Johnson also points out that the turkey chili Obama served for lunch yesterday with Romney was “the same meal Romney served up at his June 2, 2011, campaign kickoff.”

AP: “Obama and Romney together: Chili, not chilly.” AP’s lede: “Three weeks after the election, Mitt Romney made it to the White House. For about 90 minutes. After an odd arrival in which a man rushed his SUV and ended up getting arrested by the Secret Service. It wasn’t the start of a term as Romney had envisioned. But it was, at least, all on good terms with the man who defeated him, President Barack Obama.”

Politico: “There was no mention of any formal collaboration, but they “pledged to stay in touch, particularly if opportunities to work together on shared interests arise in the future,” the White House said. There was no talk of Romney joining the Obama administration, a source familiar with the lunch said.”

Joe Biden went to Costco. Buzzfeed has pictures.

David Axelrod will shave his mustache.

At the Supreme Court… It “wades into a wide array of same-sex marriage cases Friday, and its selections could put an exclamation point on a year of unprecedented progress for the gay-rights movement,” USA Today writes. “The nine justices must decide which case or cases to consider from among seven on their plate, from the right to marry in California to the receipt of federal marriage benefits from coast to coast. While oral arguments and court rulings would be months away, just the choices made in Friday's closed-door conference could doom California's troubled Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage or put the federal Defense of Marriage Act on the defensive.”

President Obama and Mitt Romney met today for the first time since the president’s sweeping electoral-vote reelection Thursday over lunch at the White House.

Over an hour -- and white turkey chili and Southwestern grilled chicken salad -- the once-bitter rivals talked about "America's leadership in the world" and "pledged to stay in touch," according to the White House.

Here’s the official White House readout:

This afternoon, President Obama and Governor Romney visited for an hour over lunch in the Private Dining Room adjacent to the Oval Office.  Governor Romney congratulated the President for the success of his campaign and wished him well over the coming four years. The focus of their discussion was on America's leadership in the world and the importance of maintaining that leadership position in the future.  They pledged to stay in touch, particularly if opportunities to work together on shared interests arise in the future.  Their lunch menu included white turkey chili and Southwestern grilled chicken salad.

The White House

Mitt Romney, left, and President Barack Obama, right, shake hands during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House. It was their first meeting since Obama won reelection Nov. 6 by defeating Romney.

As Obama and Romney have lunch at 12:30 pm ET, not everyone is moving on from the ’12 race… Romney chief strategist Stu Stevens explains Romney’s loss by essentially suggesting Obama was black and poor people voted overwhelmingly for him… As it turns out, Obama’s victory was more decisive than Bush’s in ’04… Tom Cole and the cover he gives to John Boehner… NYT: Other Benghazi-related questions get lost in all the attention on the talking points… 112^th Congress on track to be least productive Congress since 1947… And the importance of Virginia and its gubernatorial contest.

*** Moving on? At 12:30 pm ET today, President Obama holds a private lunch with Mitt Romney -- their first meeting since the election and just seventh overall according to our count. The lunch allows both men to bury the hatchet and show that this country is able to move beyond its elections. But not everyone is moving on. In a Washington Post op-ed published yesterday, Romney chief strategist Stu Stevens defended Romney and his campaign. “Over the years, one of the more troubling characteristics of the Democratic Party and the left in general has been a shortage of loyalty and an abundance of self-loathing. It would be a shame if we Republicans took a narrow presidential loss as a signal that those are traits we should emulate.” It was more than appropriate for Stevens to write about Romney and the campaign after the election; in fact, Stevens speaks today at Harvard along with the top officials from the Obama campaign to discuss the 2012 race. But what’s especially striking about Stevens’ op-ed is that it doesn’t contain an iota of introspection about why the Romney campaign was unable to win a winnable race. It was an odd tone for Stevens to strike, and it will be curious to see if he’s just as defiant today at Harvard.

*** Explaining Romney’s loss -- Obama was black and poor people voted overwhelmingly for him: Indeed, the entire piece appears to rationalize that the campaign’s strategy was right. (And for the reporters who received emails from Stevens during the campaign, the tone was very, very familiar.) In the op-ed, Stevens essentially suggests Romney lost because poor people overwhelmingly voted for Obama. “On Nov. 6, Romney carried the majority of every economic group except those with less than $50,000 a year in household income. That means he carried the majority of middle-class voters.” Yet that analysis ignores that those making less than $50,000 represented 41% of the electorate in 2012, and many of those people probably would argue that they’re in the middle class. Stevens also seems to argue that Obama won because he’s a black man whose campaign and party raised $1 billion. “[H]e was a charismatic African American president with a billion dollars, no primary and media that often felt morally conflicted about being critical. How easy is that to replicate?” But that also leaves out the fact that Romney was a white man who had a famous name in American politics and whose effort also raised close to $1 billion. By the way, there’s a lot of contradictory evidence to suggest the president carried the middle -- the swing suburban counties. In every swing state, the largest major suburban county tipped to the president.

*** Obama’s victory was more decisive than Bush’s in ’04: And here’s one final observation about the 2012 race. Per the excellent work by the Cook Political Report’s David Wasserman, Obama’s national lead over Romney continues to expand as votes keep on coming in. It’s now Obama 50.9%, Romney 47.4%. That’s a bigger (and more decisive) margin than Bush’s victory over John Kerry in 2004 (which was Bush 50.7% and Kerry 48.2%). What’s more, the president’s lead has grown to close to 3 points in Ohio, 4 points in Virginia and 6 points in Colorado. One doesn’t win Colorado by six points without winning swing voters; there isn’t a big-enough Democratic base to make that argument.

Mike Segar / Reuters

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney arrives to deliver his concession speech during his election night rally in Boston, Massachusetts, November 7, 2012.

*** Cole gives cover to Boehner: In today’s “fiscal cliff” news, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is meeting individually with top Democratic and Republican congressional leaders. Bloomberg News: “Geithner will meet separately with each of the four top leaders in Congress: House Speaker John Boehner, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Rob Nabors, the administration’s director of legislative affairs, will accompany Geithner.” And speaking of Boehner, GOP Rep. Tom Cole -- who on Tuesday said that Republicans should extend the Bush tax cuts for only those making $250,000 or less -- did a big favor for the House speaker. Why? It gives him A LOT more space to cut a deal with the Obama White House. After all, when is the last time that a conservative (albeit an establishment) House member go to the left of Boehner? Bottom line: Cole’s move gives Boehner more negotiating flexibility than he had previously. Also, don't miss David Gregory's interview with former FDIC Chair Sheila Bair, who is very critical of Geithner.

*** Other Benghazi-related questions get lost in all the attention on the talking points: For weeks now, there’s has been so much attention on Susan Rice and those CIA-drafted talking points about the attack on the Benghazi consulate. And after more critical comments from GOP senators, Obama showered praise on Rice during a photo spray of his cabinet meeting yesterday. “Susan Rice is extraordinary. I couldn’t be prouder of the job that she’s done.” But the New York Times makes a pretty good point: Lost in all of the attention over the talking points are bigger and perhaps more important questions. “Were requests for greater security for diplomats in Libya ignored? Even if Al Qaeda’s core in Pakistan has been decimated, what threat is posed by its affiliates and imitators in other countries where they have taken refuge? How can crucial diplomacy be conducted amid the dangerous chaos that has followed the toppling of dictators across the Arab world?” Also, while this hasn’t been the best P.R. week for Rice, it does look like she can survive a confirmation process. The person who may have had a worse week in these meetings? CIA acting dir. Mike Morrell.  He could end up the real political loser in all this.

*** Do-Nothing Congress? NBC’s Kyle Inskeep notes that this 112^th Congress is headed to achieve a dubious distinction: the least productive Congress since the 1940s. With just weeks left, this Congress (2011-12) has passed just 196 bills into law (and many of those have been ceremonial pieces of legislation, like the naming of courthouses). The previous low was set by the 104^th Congress (1995-96), which passed just 333 bills into law. So to avoid earning the distinction as the least productive Congress since 1947, 138 bills must move through the House and Senate before the end of the session next month -- an unlikely feat. Then again, reaching a deal on the fiscal negotiations would be a big legislative accomplishment. Also, there are plenty of conservatives who would argue that NOT passing bills actually means this was a productive Congress. It’s all eye-of-the-beholder stuff.

*** The importance of Virginia its gubernatorial race: Virginia has arguably become the most important swing state in the country (in the past two presidential elections, the state has exactly matched the national popular vote). And Virginia’s off-year gubernatorial contest has recently set the tone for the party of out of power. In 2005, Tim Kaine (D) won his race by appealing to independents and the suburbs -- a model the Democrats replicated in 2006 and 2008. In ‘09, the socially conservative Bob McDonnell (R) focused like a laser on the economy, which congressional Republicans followed in ’10 and even Romney tried to replicate in ‘12. Yet here’s the conundrum for Republicans in 2013: The very conservative and outspoken Ken Cuccinelli is going to be the face of the GOP next year. Now it’s more than possible that Cuccinelli runs a strong race that national Republicans will copy in 2014. Or it’s also possible that his candidacy reinforces some of the negative stereotypes that the party wants to erase. By the way, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling -- whose exit cleared the way for Cuccinelli’s nomination -- isn’t going away quietly. Per the Roanoke Times, he isn’t ruling out a gubernatorial bid as an independent.

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The Boston Globe: “In a meeting that has been weeks in the making, Romney will join President Obama for private lunch at the White House just 23 days after he lost the election. It will be the first time they have met since the election, and it follows several weeks in which Romney has started to contemplate life outside of politics. It marks both an early olive branch extended to a vanquished political rival and also is a potentially pivotal moment for Romney.”

How the meeting happened: “Just before Thanksgiving, the White House called Matt Rhoades, who was Romney’s campaign manager, to see if Romney would be interested in having lunch at the White House. Rhoades replied that he would, and the lunch started to be pieced together.”

The meeting is something of a tradition, beginning in 1960 when JFK met with Richard Nixon at his Key Biscayne, FL, home.

More: “Those close to Romney say he hasn’t decided yet what he wants to do next. He is planning to move into an office within Solamere Capital, a venture capital firm on Newbury Street that was co-founded by Romney’s oldest son, Tagg, and his finance chairman, Spencer Zwick. Former Romney advisers say that he is subleasing office space, but he has no plans to actually have a role within the firm. Still, the move does indicate that Romney is beginning to lay the groundwork for a Boston-based life after the presidential campaign.”

The AP: “White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama had no specific agenda for the meeting, but he said the president would like to discuss Romney’s ideas for making government more efficient.”

Politico: “Lunch is on the menu, but that’s probably about it. For President Barack Obama, the meal he’s having with Mitt Romney at the White House on Thursday is another important post-election, post-partisan moment. For Romney, it’s a chance to make sure his last impression on the political consciousness isn’t all about the word ‘gifts.’ But like most Washington rituals, the former rivals’ post-election get-together is expected to be more symbolism, less substance.”

The meeting also comes a day after top Romney adviser Stu Stevens labeled the sitting president, in a Washington Post op-ed, as “a charismatic African American,” who benefited from the support of minorities.

Jennifer Rubin, for one, wasn’t impressed with Stevens’ interpretation of the election: “Stevens fails in precisely the way in which the campaign failed: a refusal to acknowledge real and material incompetence by himself and others on the campaign. … Look, if understandably he still wants to keep charging large sums for his services and therefore not openly confess his mistakes, that is fine. But then don’t write a self-serving op-ed.”

By the way, the guy who got the Romney “R” logo tattooed to his face and vowed never to have it removed is going to be doing exactly that. The turning point for him were Romney’s post-election “gifts” comments. “It stands not only for a losing campaign but for a sore loser,” the man said. “He’s pretty shameful as far as I’m concerned, man. There’s no dignity in blaming somebody else for buying votes and paying off people. I can’t get behind that or stay behind that.”

Kids, let this be a lesson to you – it’s going to take seven to 10 sessions that doctors describe as painful to get that tattoo off his face.

Despite talk of Mitt Romney’s momentum in the final weeks of the presidential campaign, Barack Obama cruised to a wide Electoral Vote victory and his popular-vote margin wound up closely mirroring George W. Bush’s 2004 victory.

In fact, voter confidence in the president consistently improved as Election Day neared and was nearly the identical level Bush had before his reelection, a review of data for the NBC News Voter Confidence Index shows.

President Obama’s VCI score was -11 for the month of October, exactly the same as Bush’s score in October 2004.

Despite his first debate performance and Romney’s claim of momentum, Obama never saw a drop in that period in the VCI. Obama’s VCI went from -29 in August to -15 in September to -11 in October and -10 in the first week of November.

And that improvement was squarely because Americans told pollsters in the fall they felt better about the direction of the country.

The VCI uses a combination of the president’s job approval rating, the direction of the country, and the so-called generic congressional ballot, which tracks voter preference between parties rather than individual candidates. There is equal weight given to all three questions. The difference between two sets of numbers in each question is calculated and then added up.

For example, Obama’s average job approval rating for the month of October was +2; the direction of the country average score was -14; and the generic congressional ballot was +1 for a -11.

Obama’s average approval rating remained fairly consistent throughout the 2012 campaign. It hit its lowest point (-8) right after the debt-ceiling debacle in September 2011. Combining the bad direction of the country score (-52) with the generic ballot (Republican were ahead by 3 points that month), Obama had his worst VCI score of his presidency : -63.

No president had ever been reelected with a VCI that bad. Jimmy Carter had a -72 VCI right before the 1980 election he lost. George H.W. Bush was -84 right before the 1992 election he lost.

The successful presidents reelected since 1980 – Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton – enjoyed high VCI scores. Reagan stood at +62 in 1984 before his landslide victory. Clinton was at +45 before his sweeping reelection over Republican Bob Dole.

The generic ballot portion of the VCI in 2012 also remained consistent with Democrats holding a slight lead most months.

But direction of the country is what really moved and likely buoyed the president to a second term. More Americans said they were more optimistic about the direction of the country as November 2012 neared. It went from a nadir of -56 in October 2011 to -23 in March by the time the GOP presidential primary wrapped up.

The VCI score for direction of the country stayed in the -20s through July, dipped to -30 in August and then began to break through that plateau after the parties' conventions. The score improved to -19 in September, the best since May 2011 – the month Osama bin Laden was killed.

Before that, direction of the country hadn’t been that strong since January 2010. And at that point, it was trending in the other direction.

The direction of the country average improved again in October to -14 and again in that first week of November to -13.

It’s clear that how people feel about the country -- whether it’s headed off on the wrong track or in the right direction -- is perhaps the most telling indicator of whether a president will be reelected.

President Obama and the man he defeated in the 2012 presidential contest -- Republican Mitt Romney -- will have lunch Thursday at the White House, Obama's press secretary announced.

It will be the first meeting since the election's end.

The White House said there will be no press coverage of the meeting.