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America is an outlier in the world of democracies when it comes to the structure and conduct of elections.

We're like a Third World country when it comes to some of our election practices.

I'm much more attracted personally to governments going their full term. It's very hard to have a fixed term election I know with ah... a parliamentary democracy, but I've always had an instinct to say there should be a fixed term.

I have always thought, genuinely thought, that elections are like world cups. They sometimes look easier from the outside and they are very difficult when you are in the middle of them.

It is a paradox that far too few Americans participate in the wonderful ritual of democracy that we call Election Day.

Things on the whole are much faster in America; people don't 'stand for election', they 'run for office.'

In some countries that are darlings of the West, like Egypt, everyone knows the result of national elections years in advance: The man in power always wins. In others, like Saudi Arabia, the very idea of an election is unthinkable.

Elections are about choices, and part of what you do is draw that contrast.

It took us 50 months in Germany, post World War II to go from the end of the war to a national election.

The election before us will be the Austerlitz of American politics.