Nicolle Wallace

My husband saw me go through the 2008 campaign cycle. We did it together for Sarah Palin and John McCain. It ended disastrously, and afterward I really wanted to do something different, so I started writing novels, and I imagined a fictional female president in my head.

I worked for Sarah Palin. I have the political staffer version of P.T.S.D., so whenever I hear that she's breaking her silence, my heart stops.

I like and respect Elisabeth Hasselbeck so much. I'm from a political party that represents half the country.

Everybody wants to do 'The View.' It's this iconic show. When I worked at the White House, I used to watch the beginning to see what they were talking about. If a political topic was on their radar, I used it as ammunition with the president or the White House staff.

During the day, I don't read too much of the blog traffic, but then at night, I read transcripts of all of the network packages, and then I watch the wires and some of the political blogs.

The two pillars of winning the presidency are being a strong leader and being someone who understands us and our problems.

People always related to President Bush, but in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq War, his numbers collapsed because people didn't feel like he handled those properly. Obama is the inverse. He was elected because he was an extraordinary guy, but the fact that he isn't ordinary has turned out to be politically damaging.

If you're dating the quarterback and then you go out with the hockey player, you just go to the hockey games. I don't think I'll still go to the football games.

I love Carly Fiorina's fire; she's feisty as heck. She really seems to fearlessly take the fight right to the doorstep of the Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton Foundation.

I was very much inspired by the things that I'd seen and done in politics, but I was also desperate for a complete departure from the reality of my political experience. 'It's Classified' and my previous book 'Eighteen Acres' are both works of fiction, but if they do seem realistic, it's by design.

I worked in the White House on 9/11, where the vice president was given the authority to, if he deemed necessary, shoot down an American passenger jet.

A life in politics is for people who know themselves and know where their own line is between loyalty and honesty.