I think that there's a power in that [information through tweets and sound bites ]. There's also a danger, what generates a headline or stirs up a controversy and gets attention isn't the same as the process required to actually solve the problem.

I use a different style if I'm speaking to a big crowd; I can gin up folks pretty well. But when I'm in these town hall settings, my job is not to throw them a lot of red meat. I want to give them a sense of my thought process.

Sustaining the energy and focus involved in doing a good job I think starts to gets tougher the longer you do it.

This is why the anti-discrimination principle being enforced is important. Because it won't stop if some of the underlying biases aren't challenged and surfaced. And that in and of itself creates backlash and denial. This is what I mean when I say better is hard.

When the economy's shrinking, providing jobs, spending on things like infrastructure can actually increase revenue and drive down debt. And then, there's going to be a time at which point debt has to be taken care of.

The Supreme Court nominations [example]. I mean, the fact that Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Republicans, was able to just stop a nomination almost a year before the next election and really not pay a political price for it, that's a sign that the incentives for politicians in this town to be so sharply partisan have gotten so outta hand that we're weakening ourselves.

I could never be a politician. But as uncomfortable as I would be doing so, I have no problem with Obama's long-planned 'change of heart.' This dude's made huge, measurable strides for gay rights, and if being coy about his plans for gay marriage for a few years was needed to get him elected, then so be it. LGBT persons will be better off, and federal same-sex marriage recognition will come sooner because of it.