So the result was that as one approached a political convention for most of the 19th century and for most of the 20th century until the 1960's, part of the drama was the fact that you didn't know ultimately who was going to be the nominee at the end of that convention week.

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.

You have had presidential candidates over the last 30 years who would have had a very hard time getting nominated under the old system. One example is John Kennedy.

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

I'm defining [presidential courage] pretty narrowly. It's not only taking a big political risk but it's also the risk that in the hindsight of history, people think it's wise.

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

The founders were very worried that if parties developed in America, you might have something like the modern Italian system, where you have 20 different parties that divide Congress and the country and can't govern.