There is nothing more basic to our democracy than the right to participate in electing our political leaders.

The other thing that has changed - and this is more detailed to CPAC than the general Republican Party - is they have always been an outsider, Ann Coulter, sort of protest style, a little ruder than most Republicans. And this goes back all the way to [Ronald] Reagan.

Hillary Clinton, at the end of the debate, what you want viewers to say, yes, she's smart, she's knowledgeable, but she's not a bad egg, you know? Not a bad egg is a pretty high compliment in American politics, given the toxic atmosphere in which we currently dwell.

The problem with smear campaigns is that too often they work.

I think Donald Trump is obviously the more colorful, the more flamboyant, the more dominant personality.

I do think what the Tea Party also had was Obamacare and the unpopularity of that, at least at the time. And so whether there is something that is equally unpopular and equally galvanizing that is almost self-destructive from the administration, that's another factor that we will wait and see.

I think that the people that are publicly on Hillary Clinton's short list all are very congenial people. They're not people with personality or Captain Queeg problems.