So if 1960 had occurred under the old convention system, Kennedy would have had a very hard time getting the Democratic nomination because he would h….

To people who remember JFK's assassination, JFK Jr. will probably always be that boy saluting his father's coffin..

The Founding Fathers would be sorry to see that America had become so divided and factionalized..

The founders were very worried that if parties developed in America, you might have something like the modern Italian system, where you have 20 diffe….

We [the United States] are the world's only superpower right now, so everyone notices every bit of what we do or don't do..

Then you get to the last half of the 20th century, Americans are getting very skeptical about their leaders and their institutions, and another place….

So the result was that as one approached a political convention for most of the 19th century and for most of the 20th century until the 1960's, part ….

You have to raise $100 million, probably, to be serious..

Lincoln was able to say, you know, "It will make me very unhappy if I lose the presidency, but I'm committed to larger things." If you look at candid….

Roosevelt understands that there are things that are worth surrendering your career for, like defending the country against [Adolf] Hitler..

You don't say that for a senator to be a great senator he has to vote against his constituency..

As you look back in history, we [the United States] have done wonderful things, the Marshal Plan is the most obvious. After World War II, we spent bi….

We cannot be spun, or at least we'd like to think that we cannot be. And the presidents who are trying to - too overtly to try to say, here is what y….

The original thing that fascinated me most was why we expect leaders, and especially presidents, at times to destroy themselves - and that's a sign o….

A lot of it was, you know, you look for moments where, for instance, we were dependent on Abraham Lincoln making sure that the slaves were freed or J….

The point is that you see candidates running in these different kinds of contests. A primary shows you something that's different from a state party ….

You have had presidential candidates over the last 30 years who would have had a very hard time getting nominated under the old system. One example i….

I'm defining [presidential courage] pretty narrowly. It's not only taking a big political risk but it's also the risk that in the hindsight of histor….

Legacy is what a president does that affects later generations..

As parties began to develop around the turn of the 19th century, you had party nominees for President nominated in caucuses made up of party members ….

What if we had a culture that prevented these presidents from being courageous? And I worry now that we have a system that makes it very hard to choo….