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"Still trying to wrap your head around that 18-month, six-billion dollar campaign? Not quite sure what to make of Tuesday's results? Not to worry: for the next few days we'll be surveying the best and brightest in politics and punditry to help you make sense of it all.\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\nFirst up: Professor, Author and MSNBC Host Melissa Harris-Perry.\n\nGQ: What the f*ck did we just do for the last year?\n\nMHP: Well, in the most serious way, I guess the most disappointing thing to me about the election was the extent to which we had very little conversation about president Obama's actual record. On the one hand, I'm quite pleased to see the president reelected, but I am disturbed about how little substantive, meaningful conversation there was about his major domestic policy accomplishments of the first term, only because I think they deserve conversation, most importantly the Affordable Care Act, which of course Romney wanted to stay very far away from in debates because of his own Massachusetts-based act. We never really got to have much of an airing about where we go moving forward, it just became repeal it or keep itm but not about, okay, we passed major legislation but what will it take to implement it? I'm hoping we are able to have the conversation now. But I suppose what makes me happiest, particularly over the last two months, once it became clear that women's issues and reproductive rights were going to be central, I've got to tell you I very much appreciated the bipartisan repudiation of the idea that we are going to have some national redefinition of rape and sexual violence. Everybody who decided to spout off about how much they knew about women's bodies or rape, every last one was defeated, and if there's going to be bipartsian agreement about something in America, I'm glad that it's going to be that rape is bad. I'm glad we can all agree about that.\n\nGQ: What does the Republican Party need to do now?\n\nMHP: Look: I think any party has got to be pretty sober and careful about individual election results, so the idea that in the midterms there had been some great American wave passed against Democrats was as equally as false to imagine some great American rejection of Republican party. That said, there's an enormous demographic difference between Democrats and Republicans that both sides need to take very seriously. Looking at the results, I see that when we have a large electorate, a lot of people voting\u2014young people, people of color and women, Democrats win. When the electorate shrinks, in midterms, Republicans win. Republicans have a less broad base of support but Democrats have hard time mobilizing their party about anything other than a single charismatic leader like President Obama and before that Clinton. Republicans have to learn that they can't be a party of old white guys because those guys will eventually die and Democrats will have to figure out how to keep their base as well as non-base supporters motivated in off elections. Otherwise we'll constantly have divided government where they don't get much done.\n\nGQ: What do Democrats have to do?\n\nMHP: I don't know if it's Democrats doing it or media doing it, but I've read several items about Hillary Clinton running in 2016, which is driving me absolutely bananas. I have no idea if she will run, but Democrats should certainly not be wishing for it, that would be an absolute backwards step in my opinion. This party does well moving forward, that sounds ridiculous given the presidential campaign theme but that really is it. If we or rather Democrats put up Hillary Clinton as presidential candidate in 2016 I think she could reasonably win a Democratic primary but my sense four years out with very little information is that what that would look like is watching Newt Gingrich run this time. Not that I think of them as the same but they're the same era.\n\nGQ: What's the lesson you're taking away from this election?\n\nMHP: Read Nate Silver. And believe Nate Silver. Let the rest kind of wash over you. In addition to that what I'm hoping is one of the lessons again of particularly Democrats is that you just can't win if you don't run. The thing that the Republican party has been very good at over the past 30 years is running candidates at every level and in places that ought to be safe Democratic districts. As much as Tuesday was a big win it was not as big as it probably needed to be for an aggressive second term agenda, because there were tons of places where there were reasonable opportunities for Democrats to run and they looked at early electoral tea leaves and decided not to, which just means that you cannot win if you are not in the game.\n\nGQ: What is the most astonishing thing about the race to you?\n\nMHP: Oh, without any doubt the passage of marriage equality in three states. And particularly Maryland which affirmed marriage equality with same multiracial coalition that helped reelect President Obama Tuesday night. For me it's an indication of how important it is for the president to lead on issue like this. This is an issues where I've always rejected the idea that African Americans are any more homophobic than their white counterparts but I do think there's a great deal of room for leadership on this issue. But when President Obama made no policy change but simply affirmed that the rights of gay men and women to marry were part of a long civil rights struggle, I think that clearly made the margin of difference in Maryland. The fact that it happened in Maine. in Maryland, is great and astonishing to me. I remember a lot of enthusiasm in 2008 but that came with the passage of Prop 8 that night, so there was no way you could feel anything other than the sense that one person had won but the progressive movement had not won, that it had taken pretty big blow. It was easier for progressives to celebrate Tuesday night.\n\nGQ: Give us one song that sums up your feelings about the end of the campaign.\n\nMHP: It'd be so wrong to say it but I have had Jay-Z's 'American Gangster' stuck in my head over and over and over again. I suppose it's terribly wrong to say it but that's the one for me. It's a little of both\u2014there was lots of moments where it felt like lots of American gangsters were trying to steal the election, whether it was with voter suppression, big money in the campaign\u2014but also though, ultimately it was not gangster er but gangstah with an ah; Obama had an extraordinary win early in the night. Everyone was hopped up on caffeine expecting the campaign to go on all night but it didn't.\n\nRead more on Death Race 2012\n\n[How the Secret Service Said Goodbye to Mitt Romney\n\n](http://www.gq.com/news-politics/blogs/death-race#ixzz2BePatgeS)\n\nThe Empowerment Campaign and its Dividends\n\nWho Won 2012? Women. Sorry Guys.\n\nA Mile High, and a Mile Short\n\nFollow Marin Cogan on Twitter for more updates from the political scene in Washington and on the campaign trail."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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