My conviction is that those fights need to be fought right now and can be won. And if in fact we have finite political capital, energy, resources, we need to win those fights.

We as a country have to do some soul-searching.

Reading is important. If you know how to read then the whole world opens up to you

When our government is spoken of as some menacing, threatening, foreign entity, it ignores the fact that in our democracy, government is us

I think that people are concerned about the breakdown of the family but they also don't want to see discrimination against gays and lesbians who they work with and they want to be able to make sure that gays can visit each other in hospitals and be able to inherit property.

I think that Mr. Snowden raised some legitimate concerns. How he did it was something that did not follow the procedures and practices of our intelligence community. If everybody took the approach that I make my own decisions about these issues, then it would be very hard to have an organized government or any kind of national security system.

I think it's a healthy thing for the Democratic Party to go through some reflection.