Dick Morris Admits to Being Partisan Hack, Bobby Jindal Calls GOP ‘Stupid Party,’ and More

Next Step:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will announce Wednesday whether she intends to stay on or step down from her leadership post in the House of Representatives. The former House speaker told reporters Tuesday: “I love you all very dearly, but I thought I’d tell my caucus first.” (Read more)

Reporting for Duty?: Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry is in the running to become the next secretary of defense. Kerry’s name has also been floated as a possible candidate to succeed Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. However, according to The Washington Post, President Obama is likely to nominate Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. (Read more)

Pick a Winner: Angus King, the independent who won the Maine Senate race, could make a decision on which party to caucus with by Wednesday. That’s the day both parties will hold their leadership elections. King is expected to caucus with the Democrats. (Read more)

Blame Game: It seems as though everyone has a theory as to why Mitt Romney lost the election. Now, Romney’s running mate Paul Ryan is speculating on why his ticket lost. In his first post-election interview, Ryan said the loss could be attributed to urban voters. He said: “I think the surprise was some of the turnout, some of the turnout especially in urban areas, which gave President Obama the big margin to win this race.” (Read more)

The Party of Dumb: Louisiana GOP Gov. Bobby Jindal ripped his own party Tuesday, calling on Republicans to “stop being the stupid party.” Jindal, who will take over the Republican Governors Association this week, also said of the GOP, “We’ve also had enough of this dumbed-down conservatism. We need to stop being simplistic, we need to trust the intelligence of the American people and we need to stop insulting the intelligence of the voters.” (Read more)

Major Dick: Apparently Dick Morris’ crazily optimistic prediction that Mitt Romney would win in a landslide was based on the idea that the Republican White House candidate’s sagging campaign needed a boost. Here’s Morris admitting on Fox News that he’s basically a glorified partisan hack: “I hope people aren’t mad at me about it … I spoke about what I believed and I think that there was a period of time when the Romney campaign was falling apart, people were not optimistic, nobody thought there was a chance of victory and I felt that it was my duty at that point to go out and say what I said. And at the time that I said it, I believe I was right.” (Read more)

The Gold Standard: A Republican Montana state representative is asking to be paid in gold and silver coins. Really. Jerry O’Neil has served in the state’s legislature for 10 years. He said he didn’t bring it up before because it was a “trivial matter” and he “did not want to be branded as a fanatic over an issue of no consequence.” Apparently, things have changed. (Read more)

Video of the Day: Here’s an update on Abigael Evans, the 4-year-old whose election fatigue was chronicled in a video that subsequently went viral. In the video, Abigael can be seen crying because, as she explains it, she was tired of the campaign between Mitt Romney and “Bronco Bama.” But now that the election is over, the adorable Abigael seems to be in much better spirits.