If this isn't the Fat Lady singing, it's awful close to that. If Ari seriously thought she was a contender for the presidential nomination, he would not walk away right now.

I think the Republican Party has changed. I think our politics have changed. The parties have deteriorated in their strength. They decentralized. We have these new super PACs and outside organizations and the Tea Party, a libertarian movement in the Republican Party. It's very different. And I think these Republicans now are very scared.

The Democratic coalition has changed. It includes environmentalists and women's groups. It's a very different party. And so labor is still a part of it, but it's not the dominant part that it once was.

I think it's less risky for the Kerry campaign to embrace former President Clinton than it is to reject him.

We will be drawing down some troops. If the president wants to try to turn that into the beginning of a success, he actually, I think, has some opportunity.

I think the White House is filled with confrontation, and is doing things to continue it. The White House and congressional Democrats think that they have the upper hand. They look at the surveys, they look at the polls, they think the Republicans are going to get blamed.

It was a very different Republican Party in 2013. And so I think particularly the House Republicans are more confrontational, less willing to compromise even than the Republican class of '94.