For a person who promised hope and civility in politics, Mr. Obama has shown a borderline obsessiveness in blaming Mr. Bush.

If you really want to diminish a candidate, depict him as the foil of his handler. This is as old in American politics as politics itself.

Look, there ought to be politics in politics.

The fallback position in politics is if you don't know what you want to be about, and if you don't know what your vision is, go at somebody else.

Negative politics have always been around.

I'll never get out of politics. I have friends in public office. I have things that I want to do. You can't go back in life. I won't go back to the existence I had before of running a political consulting firm and signing up clients and advising campaigns in exactly that way.

I know enough about European politics to know you've got a lot of crazy people who make their way onto the ballot.

Well, marriage is a very important part of our culture and our society. If we want to have a hopeful and decent society, we ought to aim for the ideal.

You may be right that people say: 'You know what, we had Obama. He was inexperienced. The guy had great rhetoric, sounded good, looked good, but has turned out to be an utter disaster. I want someone where I have confidence and credibility that they're up to the job and that I can trust what they tell me.'

Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.