Reporters are always supposed to be demanding more access and more transparency. So the day that there isn't some friction between the White House press corps and the White House is the day that somebody in the press corps is not doing their job.

There was also a sense that if he [Obama] did not win in Iowa, that it was very unlikely that he would be able to come back and win the Democratic nomination and win the general election. It was sort of an all-or-nothing bet. The stakes were that high.

There was always this sense, even early on in the campaign, that if the senator Obama could score this upset victory in Iowa, that there was a pretty good chance that he would end up being president of the United States.

The walk-in privilege, to walk into the Oval Office and have a conversation with the president, is not something that everybody gets.

The President and first lady did hold a private party at the White House over the weekend, but given the private nature of that event, I don't have a lot of details to discuss from here.

I still remember vividly watching television coverage of the Democratic National Convention in the summer of 1992 (when he was 17) when Bill Clinton got the nomination. That was certainly a part of my growing interest in politics.

When the president offered me this job, he told me that if there were situations in which I needed to speak to him or I needed his advice or I needed to ask him a question, that I could go into the Oval Office and I could ask him.