A devastating commentary on the war in Iraq is that we have been unable to spend money on infrastructure.

I think, the left makes a mistake. If you look particularly at the state levels, violent repeat criminals are not punished enough. The average murderer is sentenced to 17 1/2 years but serves six. The average rapist is sentenced to 10 years but serves about three and a half. The average mugger is sentenced to five years and serves little more than one.

I told the President, I told Rahm Emanuel and others in the administration that I thought the policy they took to try to bring about negotiations is counter-productive, because when you give the Palestinians hope that the United States will do its negotiating for them, they are not going to sit down and talk.

Certainly any president - Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative - should keep an open mind until they get the briefing.

You can set up whatever negotiations or structure you want, but until the Palestinians are willing to accept the fact, as the majority of Israelis do, that there should be two states between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, we won't have peace.

The highest priority you can have is education.

An economic message, an economic platform unites the factory worker in Scranton, the young woman in Los Angeles struggling to pay her college debt and the single mom in Buffalo who's on minimum wage.