My husband saw me go through the 2008 campaign cycle. We did it together for Sarah Palin and John McCain. It ended disastrously, and afterward I really wanted to do something different, so I started writing novels, and I imagined a fictional female president in my head.

I worked for Sarah Palin. I have the political staffer version of P.T.S.D., so whenever I hear that she's breaking her silence, my heart stops.

I like and respect Elisabeth Hasselbeck so much. I'm from a political party that represents half the country.

Everybody wants to do 'The View.' It's this iconic show. When I worked at the White House, I used to watch the beginning to see what they were talking about. If a political topic was on their radar, I used it as ammunition with the president or the White House staff.

The Cold War is over. The kind of authority that the presidents asserted during the Cold War has now been diminished.

I awake with a not entirely sickened knowledge that I am merely young again and in a funny way at peace, an observer who is aware of time's chariot, aware that some metamorphosis has occurred.

We must restore hope to young people, help the old, be open to the future, spread love. Be poor among the poor. We need to include the excluded and preach peace.

In Washington, D.C., in 2006, Democrats had long since given up on the war in Iraq in terms of any tangible political support for it. The new factor was the Republicans were beginning to give up as well, and they were truly challenging the strategy and the lack of success.