This morning I interviewed Rick Perlstein, author of “The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan,” via Skype. He, you can see, is comfortably ensconsed in his bed in Chicago, while I am, per usual, slouched at my desk in Seattle. 

It was a wide-ranging discussion, taking in, among other topics, “Rocky,” “Roots,” media fragmentation, and whether Ronald Reagan would have won the general election had he upset, as he nearly did, Pres. Gerald Ford at the 1976 GOP Convention.