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.

We must invest in infrastructure development and rebuilding communities to create jobs.

All I really want to be is boring. When people talk about me, I'd like them to say, Carol's basically a short Bill Bradley. Or, Carol's kind of like Al Gore in a skirt.

I think it does suggest that the American people really do want to listen to somebody who actually has some solutions, some answers, and gives them some hope.

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.

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.