So when we're really addressing issues like poverty, you can't do that without addressing the real driver of some of those, which is stable homes, families. So that's why to me those issues are important. They're not frivolous. They're critical economic issues.

Divorce is one of the key predictors of poverty for a child growing up in a home that's broken.

Sometimes, people mistake fire in the belly for too much pepperoni pizza the night before. They make a great speech and people come up to them and tell them, "You could be president." And the next thing you know, they're running, not because they really ought to or have any shot at doing it, but because they have, you know, a handful of people that tell them they are looking at the next president.

I support workplace clean air. But a federal ban on smoking would mean that you couldn't smoke in your own home. I don't care what people do in their home.

I almost wish that there would be something like a simultaneous telecast and all Americans would be forced, forced - at gun point no less - to listen to every David Barton message.

A healthier, less impoverished planet is good for all of us. From an economic standpoint, it allows people to contribute more to the marketplace and lead productive lives. U.S. foreign assistance opens new markets to U.S. goods and services and creates new trading partners and allies.

We ought to be people of compassion. And being people of compassion means we deny ourselves, and our self centeredness.