The challenge with a candidate like Donald Trump is he's not a conventional candidate, and he doesn't run a conventional campaign, and he doesn't answer questions in a conventional way.

Most public polling continues to be reported on strictly from a topline, horserace-type perspective that does nothing, or at best very little, to illuminate the news of the day.

I'm still a hard-edged reporter, but I'm an optimist. I'm a perpetual optimist.

When you hear 'experience,' that's all about resume. And Obama didn't have the resume. But we knew, long before that, 'steady in a crisis' was much more important than 'experience.' When you watched the presidential campaign, you saw that Obama was the one who happened to be steady... He demonstrated aspects of his character people were hungry for.

In the end, the responsibility of government abuse lies with the president.

I call it small government, grass-roots activism: The Tea Party activists are a part of it, FreedomWorks is part of it. FreedomWorks is the longest-standing, most active organization within this movement.

I do worry that as we try to fix this long-term debt and deficit situation that we don't destroy the market incentives for biomedical research. What I fear is the government using its considerable clout to say, 'Here's the price we're setting for your medicines.'

The rise of ISIS, the orgy of identity politics, and the political changes they brought - how could Obama not see that coming? I blame the golf.