History shows that people often do cast their votes for amorphous reasons-the most powerful among them being the need for change. Just ask Bill Clinton.

We needed someone to recognize the importance of check and balances, accountability, transparency. There was a real systemic problem at South Carolina State, a problem that has gone on for 25 or 30 years

One of the things that Africa needs, everybody seems to agree, is some measure of debt relief.

[It's] Rare for a first lady to be running for president.

My family was very engaged in the world around us. My father was an African Methodist Episcopal minister and an immigrant from Panama. He was deeply involved in civil rights causes, which scared my mother - she was also an immigrant, from Barbados, who had her hands full with six kids, and she worried that my father would get deported. But because of his passion for politics and civil rights, we paid close attention to current events. We would watch political conventions together - for fun!

I see a pretty bright line between analysis and opinion. And so, to that end, my goal on Friday nights is to try to assemble the smartest reporters who are available to me that week who have been involved in covering the news.

We used to say in the black community that if somebody else caught a cold, we caught pneumonia.