From a reality perspective, I'm sure part of that is true, but this is the largest blackout in U.S. history. If that is not a signal that we have got a problem that needs to be fixed, I don't know what is.

I actually prepared Vice President Biden for his debate in the last election. I played Sarah Palin. It's a little tough debating a woman.

Republicans are definitely pro-birth (they’ll do everything they can to make sure that that baby comes out, regardless of how it got in), but are they pro-life? Can you be pro-life and vote to cut funding that supports the life of a child?

Our great history has been that people came to Michigan because you didn't have to have a college degree to get a good-paying job. Consequently, we have got a larger number of our population that right now are facing outsourcing, et cetera, without higher or advanced degrees.

We need, first of all, for there to be accountability, for there to be somebody who is responsible for enforcing standards and holding people's feet to the fire.

The most powerful recent innovation in government is when states aggressively use community colleges for retraining. In Michigan, where large numbers of workers were displaced from the manufacturing industry, we created a wildly successful program: No Worker Left Behind.

We're on the cusp, on the brink, of enormous change in this country.