It is not easy to stand up against your constituents or your friends or colleagues or your community and take a tough stand for something you believe is right. Because you always want to keep working and live to fight another battle and it might cost you your career.

In a funny way, poems are suited to modern life. They're short, they're intense. Nobody has time to read a 700-page book. People read magazines, and a poem takes less time than an article.

To the extent that we are all educated and informed, we will be more equipped to deal with the gut issues that tend to divide us.

I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president - not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.

Going into politics is something people have asked me about forever.

When you make the right decision, it doesn't really matter what anyone else thinks.

We need a President who is not afraid of complexity, who believes in an open and tolerant society, and who knows that the world can be made new again - and that President is Al Gore.