There's no question that I have always wanted to be mayor. I know I am strategically not supposed to be saying that, but I don't care.

In the Senate race I went for some candidate endorsement meetings and three people there asked me: Do you go to a therapist? Because they could not believe that with the beating I took in the mayor's race I could still come in there cracking jokes and talking about the issues!

My success has been based on the issues. It's easy to fight for mental health or needle exchange or small businesses or whatever, because the machine can't interfere.

I never worked on anything so hard in my life [like my book 'Straight to the Heart: Political Cantos'], including the Bar exam. The only other thing I could compare it to is having four babies by age 24. That was hard.

There's no question that I have always wanted to be mayor. I know I am strategically not supposed to be saying that, but I don't care.

The last thing I would ever do though is actively work against another woman.

I think the book [Straight to the Heart: Political Cantos] has meaning for any large city with urban problems. There are political machines in a lot of large cities, and everywhere the goals of society get lost.