the nomination a stronger candidate in november and he will have had toence at questions and deal with the issues and a lot of this stuff old news and he will be able to go after the president on the things that we mentioned at the top? i think that is kool-aid, rick. think that was true in the case of obama and hillary because there was no idealogiccal divide. two candidates. some people liked one and some people liked the other but the base of the party was not divided. this looks more to me like 1980 where you had a real idealogiccal battle within the party where people divided not only in terms of who they supported but what they believed in and where the hits romney is taking right now are hits that go directly to his character, his competence, whether he is part of the elite, whether he understands the problems of people like us. i think romney has, frankly, shrunk in this campaign as opposed to obama who, frankly, got big. interesting analysis as always from susan estrich.