Barack Obama didn't get elected president, would never have been elected president, had he decided to run as a black candidate. In order to reach the broadest number of people you have to speak to their interests as broadly as you can.

A lot of Democrats are not that upset with Howard Dean. Howard Dean gets out here and he says these inflammatory things, and he doesn't apologize. He doesn't back down a little bit.

I knew early on that I wanted to be a reporter, but I didn't know I was a political journalist until my first job in Boston, in the '70s, covering the public school committee at a time when busing was a huge issue. Children's lives were being directly affected by political decisions, and that's when I realized that everything is politics.

It's funny, everywhere I go some people ask me whether it's going to be a Latino breakthrough, some people ask me whether it's going to be a female breakthrough, and then I'm reminded that five years ago we didn't even know Barack Obama's name.

It's not surprising that you wouldn't see that side of me on television, but in real life I find the world to be quite a funny place.

In the media universe we're in, where there are people screaming on one end, there is no problem at all with having a little bit of extra politeness.

Hope springs eternal, even in politics.