The interesting thing about the African-American experience in this country is that we are sort of a mongrel of people. I mean we're all kind of mixed up.

My tax plan will cut taxes for 95 percent of workers, because we need to put money back into the pockets of struggling middle-class families and close the egregious tax loopholes that have exploded over the last eight years. My plan eliminates capital gains taxes entirely for the small businesses and start-ups that are the backbone of our economy, as opposed to John McCain's plan, which would tax these businesses. John McCain is running to serve out a third Bush term. But the truth is, when it comes to taxes, that's not being fair to George Bush.

I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there's nothing weak - nothing passive - nothing naïve - in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.

We have to deal with issues like inequality, we have deal with issues of economic dislocation, we have to deal with peoples fears that their children won't do as well as they have. The more aggressively and effectively we deal with those issues, the less those fears may channel themselves into counter-productive approaches that pit people against each other.

You have to be organized, that you have to vote even when it's not exciting.

That is the true genius of America, a faith in the simple dreams of its people, the insistence on small miracles. That we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door.

It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa, that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.