We had to get out of Chicago so quick. Election night happens, suddenly I'm talking to Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson and trying to figure out whether the world's going to fly apart, and Michelle is trying to figure out where the girls are going to go to school. And we pack up and leave and basically our house in Chicago just became like a time capsule. My desk in my home office still had stacks of articles and bills and stuff from 2008.

America, now is not the time for small plans.

It is time to do away with work place policies that belong in a Mad Men episode.

Few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than combating climate change. The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear.

We made America more respected around the world, took on the mantle of leadership in the fight to protect this planet for our kids, and much, much more.

My core goal is to dismantle, defeat, destroy al Qaeda and its allies that killed Americans and are still plotting to go kill Americans.

After my election there was talk of a postracial America. And such a vision, however well intended, was never realistic.