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ATTENTION Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and everyone else "seriously considering" a run for President.

You can stop pretending now.

The midterm elections, which traditionally double as the unofficial starting gun for the next presidential race, are finally over. But the truth is that the 2016 campaign has been underway for two years.

It started the moment President Barack Obama vanquished Mitt Romney two Novembers ago, when a multitude of Republicans began assigning blame for the loss and not-so-subtly offering themselves up as the future of the party. And Democrats started looking toward Clinton, the party's presumed standard-bearer, who was just months away from stepping down as secretary of state and wading back into the churn of the political world.

In a broad sense, the basic contours of the race have changed little since then. The choice in 2016 continues to look like a clash between Clinton and whichever Republican can emerge from a huge pack of ideologically diverse candidates.

But the internal dynamics of the Democratic and Republican races are shifting dramatically.

For Clinton, a two-year run on the lucrative paid-speaking circuit and a rocky national book tour renewed questions about her political instincts, and provided new ammo to Republicans eager to raise fresh questions about a historic political figure whose reputation is fairly well-baked into the public consciousness. But only a handful of Democrats seem willing to challenge her for the nomination, and none of them boast the kind of star power that Obama tapped to overcome the Clinton juggernaut in 2008.

Republicans, meanwhile, are still figuring out how to communicate with a changing electorate that - even after the Republican tsunami on Tuesday - still favors Democrats in presidential years. The party is bracing for an electoral free-for-all, the likes of which it has not seen since 1964 when conservative Barry Goldwater emerged from the Republican convention in San Francisco as the nominee. Unlike recent cycles, there is no de-facto front-runner - and even Romney has seen his name floated by Republicans anxious about a presidential field that is as unpredictable today as it was two years ago.

'Wide open' field

"The Republican field is wide open but a little more competitive than last time," said former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a GOP candidate in 2012. "While the Republican field was big last time, a lot of the folks running didn't have all the tools in the toolbox to put together a successful campaign. That's in contrast to this cycle, where the people being mentioned today have an existing reputation, can raise an incredible amount of money, and have more serious public policy credentials and positions."

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With midterms over, courting of NH voters steps up

MSNBC guest: #39;Rand Paul takes more positions than the Kama Sutra #39;
(RawStory) Democratic strategist Robertson Zimmerman on Wednesday discounted Sen. Rand Paul #39;s (R-KY) latest attack on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by pointing out that the libertaria...

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MSNBC guest: 'Rand Paul takes more positions than the Kama Sutra' - Video

Did 2014 election help or hurt Hillary Clinton?
John King, Lisa Lerer and Ed O #39;Keefe weigh in on Clinton #39;s influence on the midterms and how it may affect her in 2016.

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Did 2014 election help or hurt Hillary Clinton? - Video

Hillary Clinton Vs. Elizabeth Warren | msnbc
On All in with Chris Hayes, Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren #39;s biggest fans go head to head and debate. Subscribe to msnbc: http://on.msnbc.com/SubscribeTomsnbc About: msnbc is the...

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Hillary Clinton Vs. Elizabeth Warren | msnbc - Video

She is the leading global voice championing the empowerment of girls and women, but of the eight Democratic women Hillary Clinton stumped for in the 2014 midterm cycle, only one was declared a winner.

She is the prospective frontrunner for her partys presidential nomination in 2016, but of the 26 Democrats Clinton campaigned for in the midterms, 12 won, 13 lost, and one Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana lingers in uncertainty, facing a Dec. 6 runoff election against her Republican opponent.

This cycle marked Hillary Clintons return to the arena of electoral politics for the first time since her failed presidential bid in 2008 secretaries of state traditionally abstain from partisan activity and for those scouring the newly refashioned landscape for indications of how Clintons White House prospects may be affected, the results are decidedly mixed.

Supporters of the former secretary of state argue that, despite having eschewed the rough and tumble of politics for six years, she used her time on the stump this fall to good effect, forging new and strong ties with local party chieftains in states where such connections will prove valuable to a presidential run in two years.

I think Hillary Clinton did yeoman's work in campaigning out there for Democrats, said Patti Solis Doyle, a former Clinton campaign manager in 2008, in an interview with Fox News. She did what she could to help her friends, and very strong Democrats out there. She raised money for them; she campaigned for them.

Solis Doyle emphasized that neither Clintons name nor her policies were on the ballot on Tuesday but that hasnt stopped some of her potential rivals from spreading the word that the big GOP gains marked a major setback for her aspirations. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the GOPs 2012 vice presidential nominee, told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that Tuesdays verdict tells you that shes not inevitable. I think shes very beatable.

More pointed was Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who took to Twitter with unabashed glee to brand the 13 unsuccessful candidates Clinton stumped for Hillarys Losers. The 1990s was a long time ago, Paul said on Fox and Friends on Friday morning. I don't think there is such a Clinton cachet as there once was. ... There is a message here about Hillary Clinton as much as there is a message about the president.

Doug Schoen, a former pollster for President Clinton, dismissed Sen. Pauls suggestions that Mrs. Clinton remains, in the public imagination, tied at the hip to the unpopular incumbent in the White House. This election was a repudiation, first and foremost, as every Republican I've heard say, of President Obama, Schoen said on Fox News' Happening Now on Wednesday. I think that the Clinton brand is separate and distinct from President Obama. I don't think this has an appreciable impact on her fortunes and future.

With long memories of the central role that Florida and Ohio have played in recent presidential contests, Clinton and her Democratic colleagues cannot have looked favorably upon the Republicans success on Tuesday in holding onto the governors mansions in those critical battleground states. Some have argued that she will benefit from the GOP wave by being able to run against the GOP Congress.

Yet in the actual business of campaigning the deployment of rhetoric and charisma to sway persuadable hearts and minds Clintons performance again left some feeling as though she has still not worked out the kinks on display in her rocky book tour this spring. Perhaps Clintons most memorable statement as a surrogate speaker during this cycle was her assertion, during an Oct. 24 appearance in Boston on behalf of (doomed) Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Martha Coakley: Dont let anybody tell you that its corporations and businesses that create jobs.

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For Hillary Clinton, an uncertain return to the campaign ...