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

We have gone into a war, an unelected president sending us into a war that the Congress frankly had no right, I believe, to authorize.

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.

I think if we are actually going to accept our generation's responsibility, that's going to mean that we give our children no less retirement security than we inherited from our parents.

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.

I think the legacy of the civil rights movement is that now whites are more open to being represented by people of color or people who are women or, again, non-traditional candidates.

New Zealand, by the way, where I was ambassador, has had two women prime ministers - one from either party.