You can choose a future where more Americans have the chance to gain the skills they need to compete, no matter how old they are or how much money they have. Education was the gateway to opportunity for me. It was the gateway for Michelle. And now more than ever, it is the gateway to a middle-class life.

I actually believe that we need missile defense, because of Iran and North Korea and the potential for them to obtain or to launch nuclear weapons, but I also believe that, when we are only spending a few hundred million dollars on nuclear proliferation, then we're making a mistake.

I was able to excite and engage people who previously hadn't been involved in politics, and part of the reason that I was able to be re-elected and stay relatively popular in the United States was because even when the economy was bad or we had problems, people sensed that I listened to them and I was on their side.

Money is the original sin in politics and I am not sinless.

The most important thing we can do is to make sure that we've got very high standards, we expect a lot out of all of our young people, and we make sure that we have the best teachers possible in every classroom.

The bottom line is this - whereas Iran was steadily expanding its nuclear program, we have now cut off every single path that Iran could have used to build a bomb.

I will not stand by while the special interests use the same old tactics to keep things exactly the way they are ... Not this time. Not now.