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I've been a political junkie for a long time. I find the way Washington works is just fascinating to me.

Oh, that all the things my father had told me about how disgusting Washington is are true. And again it's the system - there are lots of nice, well-meaning people there. But it's a sleazy place. And politics is all about doing favors.

I've often thought that the gauntlet of American politics is more individualistic, more expensive, more unpredictable than in many other democracies.

I don't think that politics attracts the best and the brightest of America. It doesn't attract the most sincere people.

There's a big gap between public opinion polls and the vote in Washington, in Congress.

I have come East to find what the public likes.

I love seeing America vote, through the prism of my older working class neighborhood in Riverside, California.

It's possible to spend every waking hour here on the ninth floor and not get out of the office. And this isn't the real world in here. And contrary to public opinion, I'm not incredibly poll-driven. They are an ongoing indicator of how we are going, but I take the feedback I get on the street as being the most important.

I think on a whole host of issues Washington tends to be a lagging indicator on public opinion.

It really is a fact that liberals are much higher than conservatives on a major personality trait called 'openness to experience.' People who are high on openness to experience just crave novelty, variety, diversity, new ideas, travel. People low on it like things that are familiar, that are safe and dependable.