If you are doing well, your business will pay more in tax; if you're not doing well, you pay less.

I've run for office, and I've stood on street corners, while people walked by me and didn't want to talk to me, and did not think I was a credible candidate. And then four years later, I was nearly elected mayor of San Francisco, so I know what it takes.

I think a lot of politicians, rightfully so, understand that their political futures are tied to how many times people see their names in print. The press is so accustomed to politicians wanting those things, it's a surprise when somebody's like, 'Whatever, I'm not really worried about those things.

If you engage people honestly, and you're willing to do the leg work, people will respond to that.

I think that when we're talking about youth violence, we're talking about kids who don't have opportunities, so they're engaged in a certain degree of lawlessness, because we as a society have failed them.

This idea that once you get into politics you are now signed up for lifelong duty being in elective office, makes a fundamental error - and that is believing that the only way you can hold progressive views and implement them is in elective office.

I have voted to make tough decisions in budgetary times, I've served on two recessionary budgets, my opponent has never served on any a budget committee where there was less money to spend than the year before.