that's where it started. that's where it's continuing. i think also that the way politics is divided today makes it almost required that people deny the legitimacy of the other side. and beyond that i think the republicans kind of view themselves as a kind of ruling class that are entitled by virtue of their success, by the virtue of money, by the power of money to buy anything, that they should be able to continue to buy these elections. >> i think -- rick, what do you make of this sort of north star they go by that they believe this is a center right country? i don't know whether the house believes the old founding father's notion that somehow white men of property rule the country and that's their notion of equality because somehow in their minds they think, oh, it must be a republican, all my friends are, the guys i work with, the women i know, they're all republicans. this country must be republican. i can't believe these results. >> well, there may be something to it in the sense that depending on how you ask polling questions, you can get the answer you want. you can get an answer that tells you it's a center right country, you can get an answer that tells you it's a center left country. but in this business of what would have happened if obama had lost the popular vote and still won the white house, i think you would have had a very different reaction from obama, and i think that in the year 2000 if al gore had been able -- if the shoe had been on the other foot and gore had become president while bush got the popular vote, he would have responded differently, he