The United States has got to join the rest of the industrialized world in making sure that working families of the middle class have benefits that they absolutely need. We are the only major country on Earth that does not guarantee health care to all people as a right. We are the only major country on Earth that does not provide paid family and medical leave. There are many countries around the world which make sure that public colleges and universities are tuition-free. In our country, it's becoming increasingly difficult to afford to go to college.

We're not going to give tax breaks to billionaires and then cut back on the needs of our elderly or poor or kids or education. We're not going to privatize Social Security - in fact, we're going to strengthen it. We're going to provide quality education for every kid in America, from preschool through college. We have to take on these corporate leaders who are selling out the American people, whose allegiance is now much more to China than it is to the United States. If we have the courage to take these people on, I think we can overwhelm George W. Bush and his friends.

The American people want to know that when they borrow a book from the library or buy a book, the government won't be looking over their shoulder. Everybody wants to fight terrorism, but we have to do it in away that protects American freedom.

I think that the media spends far too much time [on personalities].

If you are not prepared top take care of the men and women who put their lives on the line to defend this country - who came back wounded in body, wounded in spirit - if you're not prepared to help those people, then don't send them to war in the first place.

Being Jewish and having lost relatives in the Holocaust, I've always been aware of the meaning of prejudice. These are things that have remained with me throughout my political career.

This is America, and we are not going to throw out 11 million people in this country who are undocumented. We`re not going to turn against one of the largest religions in the world, people who are Muslim. I do not want to see Muslim kids, who feel intimidated in the country and frightened, living in the country where they grew up. That is not America. We do not want to continue the attacks against the women.