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

My parents were always philosophizing about how to bring about change. To me, people who didn't try to make the world a better place were strange.

If we can rebuild Iraq, we can rebuild Illinois and Indiana and if we can do Baghdad, we can do Baltimore.

I was the only person of color in the Senate, and my colleagues were Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms and Trent Lott.

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

I think its time to get a reapportionment process that frankly takes out the incumbency protection and the raw politics of the process.

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