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.

If you work hard and play by the rules, you'll have a better life than your parents did, and your children will have a better life than you did.

We all experience power struggles in our lives - at the workplace, with our friends, in our love lives. In a way, we're all politicians.

It's a rough and tumble game whenever power is involved - people's ambitions, their desires, their competitive spirit will often push them to play outside the rules. It's dramatic, it's interesting, and I think it's something we can all identify with to a degree.

In the best possible scenario, whenever you get notes from people, they're good notes, and they see things that you wouldn't have seen otherwise, and they make you a better writer.

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.