Conservatives are much more comfortable supporting the leader who's in power than liberals.
Jonathan ChaitOne of the things we've learned during the Obama era is how important norms are, because we've seen how the Republican Party behaved against Obama. So much of what they did was to smash pre-existing norms, which were nothing more than assumptions of how people would behave, which didn't have any real basis in rules or limits.
Jonathan ChaitIn public, Barack Obama's giving the simple version of his beliefs for the mass public. In private, he can discuss it at a really high level.
Jonathan ChaitIt's pretty clear that Hillary Clinton was a deeply, deeply flawed alternative. She had the wrong combination of the internal political chops to muscle out all the mainstream nominations from the field, leaving only Bernie Sanders, who was unacceptable to the Democrats' party establishment. But she also had a real lack of political skill that would enable her to win the general election.
Jonathan Chait