What we're seeing early on is Democrats rallying around Al Gore, Republicans rallying around George Bush and the difficulty of anybody else to get any room in the race.

[on debates] Accomplished a bit more for Bush than for Gore only because there were more question marks for Bush. I think he established that he possesses at least the minimum qualifications for being president.

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.

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 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 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.