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By Alexander Burns (@aburnspolitico, aburns@politico.com)


POLITICO SNEAK PEEK - VICTORY (OR SOMETHING LIKE IT) - The Democratic Governors Association will argue in a memo today that the committee exceeded expectations in an extraordinarily difficult election year, holding down the party's losses and picking up valuable ground in California, Minnesota and elsewhere. The memo begins with a quote from RGA Chairman Haley Barbour, announcing: "I'm going to be disappointed if we don't have at least 30 governors when we come out of the Nov. 2 election." DGA executive director Nathan Daschle takes it away: "When the final results are tallied - with Mark Dayton projected to win Minnesota - the RGA will have a net gain of five governorships. In fact, at the end of the day, in the 22 races in which both committees spent heavily (more than $500K), the DGA won 11 races, the RGA won 10, and an independent won one. Aside from the five states that flipped from Republican governors to Democratic (CA, CT, HI, MN and VT), the DGA was able to beat back expected Republican gains in five targeted states (IL, MA, MD, NH and OR)."


MORE - Daschle's memo makes only glancing mention of his party's very tough defeats in Ohio and Florida, and the loss of swing-state governorships in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But a week after the election, the document underscores just how valuable Democrats' narrow wins in Illinois, Connecticut and (apparently) Minnesota were, allowing the DGA to make a DSCC-like postgame argument: That wasn't fun, but it could have been an unalloyed disaster. "Despite a historically unfavorable environment and being outspent 2-to-1 by the RGA, the DGA successfully flipped five governorships from Republican to Democratic and kept the GOP's net gain well below the historic average," Daschle writes. Read the full memo: http://politi.co/cFt3aL


As Claire McCaskill rationalizes, Connecticut Republicans turn on each other and the Albany wire does 2016, here's POLITICO's Morning Score: your daily cheat sheet for the 2010 midterm elections.


MONDAY STAKES - Republicans are fighting over the spoils of victory. Democrats are trading blame for their defeats. Here's Morning Score's list of the politicians, operatives and political groups with the most to gain or lose in the week ahead:


(1) The White House political shop, which has already taken a shower of criticism from defeated Florida gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink and could suffer badly if Sink starts a trend; (2) The inside-the-recount-margin House Democrats, like New York Reps. Tim Bishop and Dan Maffei and North Carolina Rep. Bob Etheridge, who need to keep their voters, donors and party leaders engaged with potentially costly legal battles in order to keep open the possibility of returning to Congress; (3) Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller, who's been all but written off even before Sen. Lisa Murkowski's write-in votes have been tallied, and may not be able to match Murkowski's resources as the campaigns fight over every ballot; (4) Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who's going on "The Daily Show" tonight as part of a national book tour that's already fired up the presidential-and-vice presidential speculation mill; (5) RNC Chairman Michael Steele, who's clearly mulling a reelection bid and can't keep up the maybe-I-will, maybe-I-won't act forever.


2012 SCORE - EMBRACING ROMNEY: President Barack Obama pointed to Mitt Romney as a leading presidential rival in a "60 Minutes" interview that aired Sunday night, alluding to the former Massachusetts governor's record on health care reform as he defended the law his own administration enacted. "I made the decision to go ahead and do it, and it proved ... probably, actually, a little more costly than we expected," Obama said, "partly because I couldn't get the kind of cooperation from Republicans that I had hoped for. We thought that if we shaped a bill that wasn't that different from bills that had previously been introduced by Republicans, including the Republican governor of Massachusetts who's now running for president, that you know we would be able to find some common ground there. And we just couldn't." http://politi.co/bIuYYj


MORE - WHY WE CARE: Obama's comment is at least the second time in a week that he has fired a rhetorical starter's pistol for his reelection campaign, after he declared in his Nov. 3 press conference: "We just had a tough election. We will have another in 2012." His remark to Steve Kroft also elevates Romney as a potential opponent, as @KevinMaddenDC tweeted: "Actually, Gov. Romney hasn't decided his future yet, so it's interesting to see PrezObama already thinking about him." http://bit.ly/amIT6K


IDENTITY CRISIS: Red-state Democrats, still taking stock of the deep damage from last Tuesday, have begun to ask why they lost so badly and what it means for their prospects in future elections. The Post-Dispatch captured the agony of Missouri Dems, who thought their state had become a permanent battleground: "In 2006, Missouri was the very picture of a 'purple' state ... Judging by Tuesday's U.S. Senate election - which saw Republican U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt overpower Democrat Robin Carnahan - the new political landscape in Missouri overwhelmingly favors the GOP. Blunt won every part of the state except for Kansas City and the St. Louis area. He won six counties that in 2008 went for President Barack Obama ... Previously reliable Democratic safe zones - Jefferson County, the university community around Columbia, the Lead Belt in southeast-central Missouri - all went for Blunt this year. ... "'I think what happened is that a lot of independents and some Democrats just decided, "I'm sick of everybody" and stayed home,' [Democratic Sen. Claire] McCaskill said." See similar headlines from the Tennessean: "Analysts: Why did Tennessee Democrats lose so severely," and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette: "Experts see politics shift in Arkansas." http://bit.ly/9X9FUG and http://bit.ly/9rCs86 and http://bit.ly/bNHLhC 2012 BEGINS - IN NEVADA - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's scorched-earth reelection campaign is barely over, but the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports the battle for Sen. John Ensign's seat has already begun. From Laura Myers's report: "Ensign has not ruled out running for a third six-year term, even as he is under federal and Senate investigation related to his affair with a former staffer and alleged attempts to help the woman's husband get lobbying jobs in violation of ethics laws. Ensign, who denies doing anything illegal, would begin any re-election venture with a bare campaign bank account that is being exhausted by attorney fees.Whatever Ensign does, Republicans expect a lively primary contest. And Democrats will want to put up their strongest contender, too, and make a big push for a takeover." Floated for the seat, on the Republican side: Rep. Dean Heller, Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki, former Rep. Jon Porter, Sharron Angle, defeated 2010 primary candidates John Chachas and Danny Tarkanian. And for the Dems: Rep. Shelley Berkley, Secretary of State Ross Miller, state Treasurer Kate Marshall and Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto. http://bit.ly/aEOiVl


PLUS - RALSTON'S POST-MORTEM - Nevada's leading political scribe traced Reid's years-long slog to reelection in an indispensable Sunday yarn: "Reid knew he would be targeted the moment he took over for Tom Daschle after the 2004 election ... Step one: Turn Nevada from a slightly red state to a solidly blue one. The change came as Reid, ever the back-room player and always looking ahead and for himself, maneuvered for Nevada to get an early presidential caucus for the '08 cycle and the machine started cranking in '07. Reid publicly challenged his chief political operative, Rebecca Lambe, imported from Missouri, to turn out 100,000 people for the caucuses. I scoffed, as did many others. About 117,000 Democrats showed up. The rest of that cycle for Team Preparation was dedicated to eliminating possible opponents - they targeted state Sens. Joe Heck and Bob Beers, along with Rep. Jon Porter. All lost. In 2009, the team dedicated itself to one goal - raising enough money to scare off Rep. Dean Heller or Porter, considered their most formidable opponents. June 16, 2009, helped - the day Sen. John Ensign cast a pall over the Nevada GOP with his stunning revelation of an affair ... I have seen the Reid internal polls and they never showed him behind once after they crushed [Sharron] Angle with that advertising blitz after the primary. Not once, despite what the horribly flawed public polls showed." Read. it. all. http://bit.ly/bf4hbW


TODAY - PALIN VS. BERNANKE: We'll know she wants to run for president, they said, when Sarah Palin starts staking out actual policy positions. Well the former Alaska governor is venturing into unfamiliar territory Monday with a speech on monetary policy, grabbing a piece of the anti-Fed action in a dense, wonkishly written speech. NRO previews: "I'm deeply concerned about the Federal Reserve's plans to buy up anywhere from $600 billion to as much as $1 trillion of government securities. ... All this pump priming will come at a serious price. ... The German finance minister called the Fed's proposals 'clueless.' When Germany, a country that knows a thing or two about the dangers of inflation, warns us to think again, maybe it's time for Chairman Bernanke to cease and desist." http://bit.ly/93WLq8


SCHUMER, ELUSIVE: New York Sen. Chuck Schumer sounds unenthusiastic about the prospect of a third term at the DSCC, and the New York Observer reports he explained why in a Sunday press conference: "I have been asked by Leader Reid and many of my colleagues, and I've said I think I can better serve our country, our state, and our party by focusing on issues and getting us to refocus on the middle class." Facing an inhospitable map in 2012, some Democrats have looked to Schumer for a return engagement as the party's top Senate campaign strategist. But the senator stayed big-picture and thematic in his weekend remarks: "The party, the candidates, the individuals, that reassure the middle class that they're focusing on them and then effectively do something about it will predominate in the next election." http://bit.ly/d29i8Q


RECRIMINATIONS - IN CONNECTICUT: Former Rep. Rob Simmons and libertarian investor Peter Schiff, defeated in this year's Republican Senate primary, are publicly speculating that they could have done better in the general election than self-funding wrestling executive Linda McMahon. The Connecticut Post quotes Simmons, a decorated veteran: "There are a number of issue areas where I simply would not be subject to the kind of attacks that (Democratic foe Richard Blumenthal) leveled against Mrs. McMahon." There's another Senate race brewing - for Sen. Joe Lieberman's seat - in 2012, if either vanquished candidate wants to make another run. http://bit.ly/dh0tI5


2016 WATCH - GET USED TO IT: Andrew Cuomo hasn't yet been sworn in as governor of New York and the AP has already produced this headline: "To run or not to run: Will Cuomo seek presidency?" The wire weighs pluses and minuses: "Gov.-elect Cuomo, still nearly two months before he takes office, can't really avoid the plot line. ... His devoted daughters are photogenic and articulate and act as Cuomo's straight man when his potential for pomposity needs a jab from a self-deprecating joke, or his hard edge needs softening. He has a famous father who, in older age, is seen by New Yorkers as the towering statesman the nation viewed him as ... Working against a Cuomo run are a handful of things: He's divorced and lives with his companion of five years, television personality Sandra Lee; there's a perception that any Democratic politician from the Northeast is too liberal to appeal to the whole country; he has relatively little experience in elected office, just four years; and he was once seen as combative and highly ambitious." http://bit.ly/b5Tq75


CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "The only negatives they have on me are my positions." - Peter Schiff, making the hard sell http://bit.ly/dh0tI5

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