Sure, losing an election hurts, but I've experienced worse. And at an age when every day is precious, brooding over what might have been is self-defeating. In conceding the 1996 election, I remarked that "tomorrow will be the first time in my life I don't have anything to do." I was wrong. Seventy-two hours after conceding the election, I was swapping wisecracks with David Letterman on his late-night show.

All you need to know is this. You can never go wrong by voting for a bill that fails, or against a bill that passes.

If we added up the killed and wounded from the Democrat wars in this country, it would be about 1.6 million Americans.

You feel a little older in the morning. By noon I feel about 55.

Barry Goldwater once said ruefully, and I know how he feels. "It's a great country, where anybody can grow up to be President . . . except me."

President Ronald Reagan on his 1980 opponent: "I had a dream the other night. I dreamed that Jimmy Carter came to me and asked why I wanted his job. I told him I didn't want his job. I want to be President."

The horizon is out there somewhere and you keep chasing it, looking for it and working for it.