My start in politics was watching my parents go to the polls on election day. It reminded me that being an active, engaged citizen and voter is critical to the success of our democracy.

There was always this sense, even early on in the campaign, that if the senator Obama could score this upset victory in Iowa, that there was a pretty good chance that he would end up being president of the United States.

There was also a sense that if he [Obama] did not win in Iowa, that it was very unlikely that he would be able to come back and win the Democratic nomination and win the general election. It was sort of an all-or-nothing bet. The stakes were that high.

We have marched in lockstep with Israel. We've been side by side with them as they've confronted the Iranian nuclear threat and we'll continue to be. All options do remain on the table. That's something that we've said all along. That continues to be the case.

The United States played the role of encouraging both sides to come together to try to finally resolve this issue, and we were pleased to see leaders on both sides work courageously to get that done.

My mom and my grandmother definitely were (Democrat supporters). It wasn't a sense that, "Well, we vote for Democrats no matter what," but it was sort of the sense that, "Democrats are typically the ones that are looking out for working people like us."

There are a lot of people who are eager to assign blame. I think we're [USA] eager to try and find some solutions. One thing that would help would be comprehensive immigration reform legislation.