Editor’s Note: Gail Collins is a columnist for The New York Times.

LESLEY: So, Gail, I want to say right up front that I love reading your column …

GAIL: Oh, thank you.

LESLEY: … especially on Saturdays because it’s an unhurried morning. You always – almost always – make me chuckle. And then you come around and hit me with an especially kind of pungent insight, especially about this election. So I’m wondering why you think so many of the pundits got so much about this campaign wrong this time. Was it the nature of the candidates – you know, the woman, the African-American, the maverick, the evangelical? Or is there a problem within the punditry itself?

GAIL: Since the creation of 24-hour TV, just the necessity of talking so much really does drain everybody … there’s only so much you can say. And there’s not really much great desire for a half-hour talk about competing health-care plans. I mean, it’s just this sort of general talk about how the elections are going. And so people are kind of required, I think, to push themselves a lot more than they used to be.

LESLEY: And there’s no time to think. I mean, the minute you’ve finished saying one thing they’re calling you to come right in and talk some more.

GAIL: Yeah, you’re basically talking about the same thing over and over again. So you do sort of create general, you know, conventional wisdoms. But that said, this has been a really weird campaign. I was certainly wrong about absolutely everything. I’ve always presumed that the thing that everybody thinks is going to happen is usually, actually, unfortunately the thing that happens. And nobody, including Hillary Clinton, thought Barack — I’m not even sure Barack Obama thought Barack Obama was going to catch the way he did. I mean, he wasn’t that great a candidate when he started out. He was a good candidate, but nobody who you would say, "My gosh, this person is so spectacular right now that he doesn’t need to wait. He should — this is it." But, last summer and early fall, he just caught on fire and it took everybody by surprise. And his organization and the excitement of people in the caucus states took everybody by surprise. So that one —

LESLEY: Yeah, it took them by surprise, but he was ready.

GAIL: Yeah.

LESLEY: Which is different from Hillary Clinton’s campaign, which wasn’t ready for whatever came their way.

GAIL: I, like everybody else, has said, "Well, you know, the problem was she didn’t organize in the caucus states well." Those early caucus states, where you don’t have a general election, you just have the people who are willing to get up and go to the local school and vote. They’re the only ones who matter. And she didn’t organize that well in those states. But that said, to win in those states generally you need really committed, excited people behind you. It’s not necessarily the same kind of voter who goes out for a regular primary election. They’re people who are really dedicated, who are really willing to stand in long lines and give up their Saturday afternoon. And so I’m not sure, even, if she was well organized; that her support, which tends to be very broad but not necessarily all that deep, could have beaten his really, really, really excited, intense supporters.

LESLEY: Well, having admitted that you got a lot wrong, let’s give you an opportunity to either be wrong again —