It's also the environment that determines a considerable part of the growth and development of children.

I'm really not a partisan political person. I remember when I was in Washington they kept trying to get me to say whether I was a Republican or a Democrat. I just said, my politics are children. That's all I know anything about.

Most mothers and fathers will shop more for a TV set than they will for a child care center for their child.

Get kids out of poverty. Poverty is devastating.

I know all the problems of the schools. They're rigid, they're bureaucratic, they've got a lot of problems. But it's such an important institution, and holds such promise.

So there's much more to life than one's intelligence score. To be a decent human being. To have some character.

I thought the whole idea of being a conservative was to keep the government from messing around in people's lives. And yet they say the government should be getting into people's families. That's messing pretty heavily where I come from.