I think I have a good eye for talent. I think I'm smart enough to figure out what the mission is and achieve it. I achieve it by hiring good people.

When the media gets into creating their own product and then deciding to cover it, they are becoming part of the process and, therefore, could be damaged.

I've found increasingly less effectiveness with the man-on-the street type of stuff that was very standard fare for years. It can still be effective, but it's got to be done well.

I think it's because I'm unpredictable. I view every situation, every race, and every candidate differently I try not to rely on something that worked before.

They [candidates] say, "I don't want to say anything controversial." And so nobody covers them. Then they blame the journalists, saying "Why don't they write down what I said?" In congressional races, 90 percent of the time the answer is, "Because you are boring and you don't have anything that makes me interested in listening to you. Why the heck should somebody write it down? There's nothing here worth hearing."

It is a tremendous sacrifice to run for political office in America today.

In general, I think man-on-the- street ads and endorsement spots are having less and less effect on people. The electorate's getting very sophisticated, and they want to make their own judgments.