It's one of those areas of politics where people have become accustomed to something that was once radical. It's just normative at this point.

It's kind of a low-cost appeal to conservatives outside of Massachusetts. He's looking for things he can do to say to conservatives -- especially Christian evangelical activists -- 'Hey I'm with you,'.

It has clearly been a pattern in the past few months of Congress intensifying its efforts of looking into how the executive branch has handled executive authority, and this will only intensify. During the 1970s, Congress was also under scrutiny for how it operated; at the same time, it increased its scrutiny of how the White House conducted the war in Vietnam and intelligence. The two go together.

This is very much an on-the-spot performance, and that makes it very dynamic, ... Things come up as the questions are being asked, as the news is really focusing in on him and how he appears on television, how he responds, how he interacts with the legislators.

Many of the questions Democrats asked by the second day [of the hearings] were signals for the next candidate, ... By Wednesday afternoon, the Democrats and [interest] groups were beginning to refocus, to save energy. You can't always appear in the public eye as just an aggressor.

On all these levels, this guy's ready to go. He's done everything a candidate is expected to do.