I think Democrats are right. We fight for the American dream, for the environment, for privacy rights, a woman's right to choose, a good public education system.

There's an effort on the part of many people to attack women's rights, women's health, and the ability to control our own lives. No doubt about it. And it is not a majority of the country, in any way, shape, or form. I know on the contraceptive issue, 70 percent of the country agrees with me. Will that stop my opponents? No. Because they are so radical. They chip away and chip away.

I am saying there are women in the Senate, there are women in governorships, there are women in statewide office, there are women in the House, and I do think we can't ignore the fact that we have had the first woman ever win a nomination of a major party and the first woman ever winning the popular vote. So I think the table is set for a woman in the near future. I really do.

The Democratic Party has awakened. We've not been awake since 9/11, in many ways. We had moments, sporadically, where we woke up. But I think we were so hit by 9/11, as the whole country was, that we didn't get our legs back. It took a while. Now the Democratic Party is back. I've never seen it as united. Sure, we have a ways to go. We have a lot of ground to cover.

When you have a president-elect who calls the press every name in the book, I think it's a warning shot across the bow, and you go back to what you learn when you were a child.

It's good I was born in Brooklyn. You learn how to take care of yourself.

Voting against the resolution authorizing the use of military force in Iraq was one of my proudest moments as a senator. It is long past time to close this tragic chapter in American history.