RNC chairman hopes Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee in 2016

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus says he "sure as heck" hopes Hillary Clinton is the Democratic presidential nominee in 2016.

"I think what you saw on Tuesday was about as flat a performance as you could see from the Democrat's brightest star," Priebus said to reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast.

He added, "If your job was to unify the party and raise a ton of money, you'd want no other candidate to run against."

For Republicans, Priebus said Tuesday's results were not only to a rejection of Barack Obama and the Democratic party, but also an acceptance of conservative Republican leadership, which was also evident at the state legislature level. Republicans now control a record 66 out of 99 state legislatures.

Priebus was also quick to point out other midterm achievements: Joni Ernst became the first female combat veteran in the Senate and the first woman elected to either house of Congress from Iowa; Tom Cotton will be the youngest member of Senate; Tim Scott was the first African American elected to both the House and the Senate; and Shelley Moore Capito became the first woman from West Virginia to be elected to the Senate.

A strong ground game and unprecedented investment in data made the difference for Republicans this time around, the Chairman argued, despite Democrats' protests that the Republican wave was so strong that not even their best outreach efforts could have overcome it.

"You look at Scott Walker, Larry Hogan, Charlie Baker. What is that? Is that an accident--Democratic candidates are lousy everywhere? Everywhere on the ground they were no good?" Priebus asked, rhetorically. "The fact is just that we were a whole lot better than we have ever been. But I also haven't lost my mind--I know that we have a long way to go."

Priebus talked a lot about fundraising--for him the candidates are practically a secondary consideration. Mechanics and money come first, and he's about to start capitalizing on Tuesday's victory to raise the funds necessary to implement field operations by March in Florida, Ohio, and Virginia. He called this "a massive lift."

And Priebus had a couple of thoughts about the beneficiary of so much of this effort, his party's eventual 2016 presidential nominee. "The candidate that wins is not the candidate who will articulate how to combat fair trade with China," Priebus said, "It's who is going to provide a better country for our kids. People want tomorrow to be better than today."