As a general proposition, campaigns do not linger on the vice presidential nominee. When they have, it's always meant very bad news for the ticket. Think of Spiro Agnew's foot-in-mouth disease; Tom Eagleton's medical history; the real estate holdings of Geraldine Ferraro's husband; the unbearable lightness of Dan Quayle; Sarah Palin's reading list.

As a personal matter, I stopped voting more than a decade ago, on the grounds that it helped me as an analyst not to think about making a choice in the voting booth.

Victory has 1,000 fathers; defeat has 1,000 kibitzers.

There is no such thing as political science, but there are tenancies so strong that they might as well be called laws of nature.

Somebody is going to have to do fancy footwork to make sure Elizabeth and John Edwards get their prime-time shot .

More things in politics happen by accident or exhaustion than happen by conspiracy.

Describing the jury in the OJ Simpson murder trial: These people have served a longer sentence than some people who have committed murder.