I was elected because I believed in what we call "grassroots politics," politics from the bottom up, not the top down.

I don’t believe it is possible to transcend race in this country. Race is a factor in this society. The legacy of Jim Crow and slavery has not gone away. It is not an accident that African-Americans experience high crime rates, are poor, and have less wealth. It is a direct result of our racial history.

What matters is how well we have loved, and what small part we have played in making the lives around us better.

The Tea Party I have huge disagreements with, obviously. But I give them credit for having activated themselves. And they made a difference in terms of moving the Republican Party, in terms of moving the country in a particular direction. It's a direction I disagreed with. But it showed that, in fact, you get involved, if your voice is heard it has an impact.

Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law.

If you ask the average person they'd tell ya, "Naw, it's much more dangerous," despite the fact that violent crime has dropped precipitously.

I love listening to these guys give us lectures about debt and deficits. I inherited a trillion-dollar deficit. ... This notion that somehow we caused the deficits is just wrong. It's just not true. ... If they start trying to give you a bunch of facts and figures suggesting that it's true, what they're not telling you is they baked all this stuff into the cake with those tax cuts and a prescription drug plan that they didn't pay for and the wars.