What if we had a culture that prevented these presidents from being courageous? And I worry now that we have a system that makes it very hard to choose people who would make the same courage choice as our great presidents. And I guess what I would say is, in this next campaign, take a look at the people who are running. If they don't remind you of the great presidents, do not vote for them.

So if 1960 had occurred under the old convention system, Kennedy would have had a very hard time getting the Democratic nomination because he would have been rejected by all those people who had worked with him in Washington.

First of all, there's no mention of political parties in the Constitution, so you begin American history with not only no political conventions but also no parties.

The Founding Fathers would be sorry to see that America had become so divided and factionalized.

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.

You have to raise $100 million, probably, to be serious.

As you look back in history, we [the United States] have done wonderful things, the Marshal Plan is the most obvious. After World War II, we spent billions of dollars to rebuild Europe or at least part of Europe after the devastation of World War II. We did it out of charity, but we also did it to keep the Russians from getting deeply into Europe.