To me, that means getting back to the point where our Constitution means that you don't tap people's phones and poke into their e-mail and you don't arrest people and keep them hidden for a year and a half without charging them.

The reason that minorities and women dont have a better shot at getting elected to the Senate or to statewide office is because the campaign finance rules are so skewed as to make it very difficult for non-traditional candidates to raise the money necessary to get elected.

The Islamic community today is faced with a new version of an old struggle. My late mother used to say it doesn't matter whether you came to this country on the Mayflower or on a slave ship, through Ellis Island or the Rio Grande. We're all in the same boat now.

Illinois has less than a 12 percent black population and I won with 55 percent of the vote.

I really think that's the key, part of the spiritual renewal that America needs to have, the notion that we really can have confidence in a better tomorrow.

And frankly, being a woman I think gives me a slightly different take on a lot of the issues and on a lot of the solutions to the problems we face.

Bush is giving the rich a tax cut instead of putting that cut in the pockets of working people.