The whole reason we organize grassroots is, we think any politician that gets elected needs to be held accountable 365 days a year.

I wonder... if the Republican Party really wants to be branded right now as the party of tax cuts and torture? I mean that's what they're selling.

I have never heard a president in bad times running against - let's face it, that's what he's doing here - running against bad times, when he's the presiding officer.

The world is not checking in with us to see what skills we've picked up, what idea we've concocted, what dreams we carry in our hearts. When a job opens, whether it's in the chorus line or on the assembly line, it goes to the person standing there. It goes to the eager beaver the boss sees when he looks up from his work: the pint-sized kid standing at the basketball court on the playground waiting for one of the older boys to head home. "Hey, kid, wanna play?"

The real difference between relationship politics and transactional politics is loyalty. [Barack] Obama doesn't seem to expect it.

The problem is there are people in this country - maybe 10%, I don't know what the number, maybe 20% on a bad day - who want this President to have an asterisk next to his name in the history books, that he really wasn't President....They can't stand the idea that he is President, and a piece of it is racism. Not that somebody in one racial group doesn't like somebody in another racial group. So what? It is the sense that the white race must rule. That's what racism is. And they can't stand the idea that a man who is not white is President.

I see some parallels [with Barack Obama] but I don't see the leadership that this guy [John F.Kennedy] had of other men and women. It's more than being the smartest guy in room.