After the election, many conservatives are pondering their losses. Some say their anti-abortion principles weren't the problem; it was the Republican Party's failure to run a truly conservative candidate. They're vowing to change the party and continue their fight to restrict abortion.

Unions poured millions of dollars into ballot campaigns to guarantee collective bargaining rights in the Michigan Constitution and allow state-paid home care assistants to organize into a union. Both were resoundingly defeated.

This week's presidential election was very close in the popular vote. But it was a real blowout in the Electoral College. A GOP pollster says Democrats have assembled a majority coalition and that means his party has to make some big changes.

President Obama, in his victory speech, noted that the hours voters had to wait in line are something "we have to fix." One solution: Spend more on equipment and poll workers. But that would be tough in this fiscal climate. Another is to expand early voting. But states such as Ohio have had their early-voting laws challenged in court.

Utlimately, the most important legacy of the first big-money campaign unleashed by the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling may have been allowing rich individuals to prop up Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum — prolonging the bitter GOP primary fight and perhaps crippling Mitt Romney's presidential bid.