Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET

It's well known that before any big game, the T-shirts and hats that laud a victory are prepared by both sides.

Yet a curious thing happened after Barack Obama was re-elected on Tuesday night: Mitt Romney's victory Web site went live.



Perhaps it was someone's idea of humor -- or even anger. Yet it was immediately spotted by Political Wire, which cheerily took screenshots for public edification.

Those who enjoy schadenfreude will offer their snorts and smirks. For them, this is a Rom-Com.

Yet we seek deeper significances here.

What was odd about this election was that the, um, community organizer seemed to better at running a business-like operation than did the CEO. When it came to results-oriented details, the Democrats prevailed.

This site going live may well have been a genuine mistake, but it feels slightly sloppy. Moreover, looking at these screenshots, in which the Governor promised to flip the horizon on jobs, I was struck by one very odd turn of phrase.

For the victorious tagline read: "Smaller. Simpler. Smarter. Believe in America." It's hard to get all the details right when those details multiply on an hourly basis. And you know that the implication was that, under a Romney administration, government would somehow be smaller.

Indeed, the Mitt Romney.com site still bears the headline: "Smaller, Smarter Simpler Government."

Yet to stare at the idea that one should believe in a smaller America (never mind a simpler one) just seems needlessly odd. Also odd is the fact that the victory site went live and was immediately spotted.

Conspiracy theorists will surely wonder how a small thing like that could have happened.