now, that changed over the last decade. but whether it was the base of the party which senator mccain was battling with, you mentioned the primary issues that he had, but senior republicans, top republican minds, he would often run headlong against them. but he did the same with democrats. if you look through the obama era, i don't know that there was a republican lawmaker, particularly on national security issues, that fought with them with more vigor than senator mccain throughout the process. >> but we saw it in 2008. there was -- there were the pre-sarah palin rallies and the post-sarah palin rallies. prep pre-palin were fine but lacked energy because of his complicated relationship with the base. post-palin -- >> and the size was different. i don't think a mccain rally ever got more than 1,000 or 2,000 people. when sarah palin came on, there were regularly over 10,000 to