The light bulb going off in my head was a fear that in this pivotal moment in history, when America faces so many serious problems, when the middle class and working class of this country are being decimated, that there were not voices out there representing the tens of millions of people who needed a voice. And the idea of going through a campaign where there is not a serious discussion about the most important issues facing America, where there are not voices out there representing people who are hurting - that seemed to me unacceptable.

Subsidies for the oil, gas and coal industries are projected to cost taxpayers more than $135 billion in the coming decade. At a time when scientists tell us we need to reduce carbon pollution to prevent catastrophic climate change, it is absurd to provide massive subsidies that pad fossil-fuel companies' already enormous profits.

In any democratic, civilized - even non-democratic nations, if you are a nation, it means to say that in our case, if there's a hurricane in Louisiana, the people of Vermont are there for them. If there's a tornado in the Midwest, we are there for them. If there's flooding in the East Coast, the people in California are there for us.

When my Republican colleagues talk about family values, they mean that a woman should not be able to have the right to control her own body; that women should not be able to purchase the contraceptives that they want. Those are their family values, not our family values.

I do believe that in the future, not by dismantling what we have here - I helped write that bill - but by moving forward, rallying the American people, I do believe we should have health care for all.

When a mother has a baby, she should stay home with that baby.

I do not believe that we must maintain a bloated military budget which spends almost as much as the rest of the world combined and may lead us to perpetual warfare in the Middle East.