If both John McCain and Obama were given a sip of truth serum, both would admit they made serious mistakes in choosing running mates in 2008.

Obama was elected in a flourish of promise that many in the African-American community believed would help not only to symbolize African-American progress since the Civil War and Civil Rights Acts but that his presidency would result in doors opening in the halls of power as had never been seen before by black America.

In the class that I teach at one University, I stress that my one-word definition of politics is money. You can't name a subject matter that money doesn't touch.

Since Obama has expressed admiration for the portrait of Abraham Lincoln that Doris Kearns Goodwin paints in Team of Rivals, he could do the 16th president one better: He should name Hillary Clinton as his running mate in 2012. That would be both needed change and audacious.

My experience politically has always been that one-word definition of politics: money. Keep your eye on the buck. And that tells you where the American people are going to be.

You don't ever earn a right to stop doing anything if you feel there is an obligation to move in terms of public service.

Slavery is nothing to joke about! And the history of this nation's [the USA's] involvement with slavery is nothing to pass off in a joke.