In my very first term there was an issue that brought us [George Mitchell, Ted Kennedy, Chris Dodd] together in a very deep, emotional, and personal level.It was called 'spousal impoverishment' and it meant that for one person [to go into] a nursing home, the family [ ], could go near bankruptcy, and then they'd end up with a lien on the family farm or the home. And so I wanted to change that.

Look how Bill Cohen and George Mitchell worked together. It's the stuff of legends. And now it's the stuff of almost ancient history, regrettably, but the way those two really worked together.

I am emphatically against the privatization of Social Security. It is going to hurt millions of American women, American families and ultimately the whole country

I think, though, with that whole sense of integrity and a lot of things that have been going on, the shared leadership rather than the titular head.

I will fight in the United States Senate this year to fund a servicing mission to Hubble by 2008, a mission that would potentially increase Hubbles power and efficiency by a factor of 10 and allow us to look back almost to the beginning of the universe.

When you're up in Maine, there is Canada, I mean it's looking right at you; it's a different viewpoint.

I wanted to [share] what a gracious kind of guy George Mitchell was.