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Trump has got to, I think, move to a new level. This is no longer the primaries. He's no longer an interesting contender. He is now the potential leader of the United States and he's got to move his game up to the level of being a potential leader.

How a candidate runs shapes how a president governs.

After a two-term presidency, many young voters seem to want someone who is radically different from, even the opposite of, the commander in chief to whom they have become accustomed. After all, a two-term president will have led their nation for a significant percentage of their lives. That's boring. Isn't it time for a transformation?

One of the problems we saw in the last presidential election in our party is that our nominee, while winning the election, which we ought never to forget, often lost sight of the difference between strategy and tactics.

The most important political task facing the out-of-power party - the Democrats for now - is creating a villain to run against. It's certainly easier than developing some grand new ideas or policies on which to campaign.

Anytime you have a reelection campaign against an incumbent president and you're the party out of power - on the one hand it's wide open because there's not an heir apparent - but people are also gauging how strong is that incumbent president and what are my chances.

2016 is a change election, and that favors Trump.

We have to say now we think the character of the party has changed so far it will take something very exceptional, something really out of the ordinary line to make us be convinced there's a chance of winning back the party.

The mythology is that political change happens only in election years. The truth is you build from election to election.

Party machinery is not a fortuitous development, but is the direct result of the requirements of practical politics. The necessity of nominating candidates for offices leads inevitably to the development of caucuses and conventions.