Ben Carson's not really a factor anymore. I hate to say that of anybody, but he isn't a factor anymore.

The fact is he [John F.Kennedy] always had to have somebody around besides Jackie [Kennedy]. Whatever their relationship, he wanted company. I think it gets back to all those years in a hospital bed.

I`m closer to anybody who believes that we should lead not from behind, but from the front. Rand Paul is one step behind, leading from behind. So, yes, even [Barack] Obama is more aggressive. Obama believes you can kill Anwar al-Awlaki without getting a court order.

I think in places like Pennsylvania, there`s folks who want our next president to talk like a hawk, but fly like a dove.

How much he was shaped by being in the hospital so much as a kid. Because he was sick, he was a reader, and because he was a reader, Kennedy had heroes. Because he had heroes, he went into politics. [Kennedy liked Sir Walter Scott, King Arthur's knights, and biographies of political leaders.] If he hadn't been sick, he might have been like everybody else in the family, a jock.

I tell my staff, we're riding a tour bus around, and we're going to stop and look at some weird stuff - but we're taking our viewers around safely. They're just looking out the window at it. I'm trying to create a sense of comfort for my center audience.

You don't say, like the Bush crowd, 'I got this guy over here and I don't like him and I'm gonna get him, whether you back me or not.'