We don't need flowery words about inequality to tell us that, and we don't need a party that has led while poverty and hunger rose to record levels to give us lectures about suffering.

This sweet, blessed, God-inspired place called America is a champion that has absorbed some blows. But while we bend, we don't break. This is no dark hour; this is the dawn before we remember who we are.

Sometimes in this country, we don't focus a lot on people's experience and their resume. Mitt Romney would be the most experienced executive to be nominated since 1952. The fundamental task for the next president is going to be fixing things, cleaning things up, being a turnaround artist, if you will.

Wearing a Democratic label no longer matches what I know about my country and its possibilities.

Sure, there's a chunk of African-Americans out there who associate the Republican Party with racism, frankly particularly in the Deep South. It's an unfair perception, but it exists. Over a period time, that perception will die away if Republicans are focusing on issues that happen to impact African-Americans.

I think the most overused words in our vocabulary in the South are black and white.

Sometimes running for Congress is a four-year strategy in terms of getting out there and building a network.