When you have both parties who will not find ways to compromise, who won't meet in the middle, you have paralysis. It's the perversion of idealism.

I don't think that Washington is a fundamentally bad or corrupt place.

Is self-interest a bad thing? We want our leaders to be pure and good, but at the same time we want them to be effective, and to be effective you often have to be ruthless and not bound by ideology or the same morals that we pretend to hold ourselves to.

In politics, it's very theatrical. There’s a lot of stage craft. The campaign is trying to tell a story that they want people to believe in, and candidates are playing the role, like actors, by a creative personae that people will be attracted to.

When you have both parties who will not find ways to compromise, who won't meet in the middle, you have paralysis. It's the perversion of idealism.

The checks and balances is a way to prevent government from either devolving into an autocratic tyranny or an autocratic mob mentality.

You just have to re-wire your brain when you’re shifting from the stage to the screen, or the silver screen or the HD flat screen.