As parties began to develop around the turn of the 19th century, you had party nominees for President nominated in caucuses made up of party members in Congress.

Roosevelt understands that there are things that are worth surrendering your career for, like defending the country against [Adolf] Hitler.

The point is that you see candidates running in these different kinds of contests. A primary shows you something that's different from a state party convention, which shows you something that is different than what a caucus shows you.

We [the United States] are the world's only superpower right now, so everyone notices every bit of what we do or don't do.

A lot of it was, you know, you look for moments where, for instance, we were dependent on Abraham Lincoln making sure that the slaves were freed or John Kennedy bringing civil rights, or the first one I wrote about, George Washington trying to stop the British from invading and ending this country before it even began. Those were turning points where, if you had not had a president stepping up to the plate, if there wasn't a story like that, we would not be here.

The original thing that fascinated me most was why we expect leaders, and especially presidents, at times to destroy themselves - and that's a sign of being a good leader or a good president. We usually don't expect that of almost anyone else in any profession, in particular, in public life.

To people who remember JFK's assassination, JFK Jr. will probably always be that boy saluting his father's coffin.