Every presidential candidate highlights patriotism, but Mr. Romneys is backed by the Mormon belief that the United States was chosen by God to play a special role in history, its Constitution divinely inspired.

I don't like corporate diversity workshops.

Michelle Obama is somebody who really wants to take the high road.

The Michelle Obama that her old friends remember, that people knew in Chicago, she was a really incisive social critic. She knew how to drive an argument home. People liked her both in the workplace and socially because she was so frank.

You make real progress when somebody is honest enough to say something that's really uncomfortable.

It's not that Michelle Obama is trying to conceal her true feelings, it's that she does not want to be a political liability to her husband.

You make real progress when somebody is honest enough to say something that's really uncomfortable. Of course when you're a candidate's wife and when you're first lady and the first African-American first lady to boot, that is very, very hard to do.