I think that our own crisis of democracy is in its own way affecting our ability to leverage in the same way that we used to in the world.

NAFTA recognizes the reality of today's economy - globalization and technology. Our future is not in competing at the low-level wage job; it is in creating high-wage, new technology jobs based on our skills and our productivity.

Mitt Romney says he believes in America and that he will restore American exceptionalism. I have news for him, we already have an exceptional American as president and we believe in Barack Obama.

We need a leader who has a sense of balance, an understanding of the ebb and flow of history and a sense of our country's unique place in it. This is a foreign policy debate, and you cannot conduct foreign policy without a sense of what we are fighting for. And any President who can reduce the conduct of this country's affairs to a morning's attack by a bunch of demented fascists does not, in my view, understand what this great nation is all about.

For those of us who are fortunate to share an Irish ancestry, we take great pride in the contributions that Irish-Americans.

I don't want to claim that God is on our side. As Abraham Lincoln told us, I want to pray humbly that we are on God's side.

I will never conduct a war or start a war because we want to; the United States of America should only go to war because we have to. And if you live by that guidance, you'll never have veterans throwing away their medals or standing up in protest.