Iraq's always been very secular.

If you look at the polls - the conservatives are fine.I think there will be a fair amount of enthusiasm, or at least motivation. They very much want to remove President [Barack] Obama.

I like [ Rick] Santorum personally and respect him, but you wouldn't say that he was really that strong of an opponent. At the end of the day it wasn't like [Ronald] Reagan running against [George] Bush, or [George W.] Bush against [John] McCain, even. It's sort of surprising that Romney had as much trouble as he did, and I think it shows a weakness in appeal to those voters.

[Donald ] Trump is more important than all of us. He's more important than the media.

I don't think you want political parties that are entirely driven by some extremely doctrinal ideology.

Obviously I think politics is interesting and important and educational.

Of course there are different forms of conservatism. I would say just analytically that the Republican Party is more thoroughly conservative and the Democratic Party is more thoroughly liberal today than has been the case for most of modern history.