I am a strong believer in the free market. I am a strong believer in capitalism. But, I am also a strong believer that there are certain common goods - our air, our water, making sure that people are safe - that require to have some regulation.

There are people in Iran who have the same aspirations as people all around the world for a better life.

I don't mind cleaning up the mess that some other folks made, that's what I signed up to do

Nothing is more powerful than the black church experience. A good choir and a good sermon in the black church, it's pretty hard not to be move and be transported.

Whatever success I have achieved, whatever positions of leadership I have held have depended less on Ivy League degrees or SAT scores or GPAs and have instead been due to that sense of connection and empathy, the special obligation I felt as a black man like you to help those who need it most, people who didn't have the opportunities that I had because there, but for the grace of God go I. I might have been in their shoes. I might have been in prison. I might have been unemployed. I might not have been able to support a family. And that motivates me.

What I could not support was a dumb war, a rash war, a war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

The framers, in their wisdom, designed the [political] system so that power's pretty disbursed.