I'm a true native of the Bay Area.

I don't think you need to run down someone's reputation in order to run for the office of president.

In a day and age of global competition and instantaneous financial flows, you have to be highly sensitive to the way in which tax policy impacts your overall competitiveness as a country.

With a weak and rotting core, you don't have much of a foreign policy. You're discounted at the negotiating table, economically and militarily. So when people ask what's the best course of action for the U.S.-China relationship, I can give you ten academic responses. But the reality is we need to rebuild our core.

But economic recovery must be earned. And it will be earned by entrepreneurs and it will be earned by small businesses.

Science is the process of crash testing ideas: you ram the idea head-on into a brick wall at 60mph, and knowledge is gained by examining the pieces. If the theory is solid, the pieces are from the wall. Then we build a bigger wall.

Politics is a lot of serendipity. You're in the right place and the right time and you've got the right message, and it either connects for you or, or it doesn't.