Ken Rudin

After eight years of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Los Angeles voters will pick a, shall we say, more charismatically-challenged successor.

It's been a rough couple of weeks for John Boehner. He was all but shut out of the fiscal cliff deal, dissed by his own party, and suffered 12 GOP defections when re-elected as speaker. But did he emerge from all of this as a loser? It's not that simple.

George McGovern, Arlen Specter, Warren Rudman, Dan Inouye ... just some of the political giants who died in 2012. This week's super-sized Political Junkie column is dedicated to their memory.

Once, there seemed to be no limits for Jesse Jackson Jr., a member of Congress from Chicago and the son of the famed civil rights leader. Now he's gone, resigning his seat after a losing battle with health and ethics issues.

The election is over. Or is it? Both sides look ready to start fighting again should President Obama nominate U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to succeed Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.

The Tea Party and other conservatives argue that Mitt Romney lost the election because he was "too moderate." And they are calling for a complete overhaul of the Republican Party. But the evolving demographics may have played a bigger role.

While most of the focus this campaign season has been on the race for the White House, there is also an intense — and expensive — battle going on for control of the House and Senate. Depending on who wins the White House, Republicans need a net gain of 3 or 4 seats in the Senate to get a majority. In the House, Democrats need to pick up 25 seats to make Nancy Pelosi speaker once again.

This pre-election Political Junkie column focuses on all presidential swing states and key races for House and Senate.

After three successive "wave" elections in the House, it looks like there will be little net change in 2012. And that means the Republicans are favored to retain the majority they won two years ago.

In the past 35 years, there have been memorable moments in vice presidential debates, none greater than Lloyd Bentsen's "You're no Jack Kennedy" jab at Dan Quayle. But do they affect the election results?