The American polity is infected with a serious imbalance of power between elites and masses, a power which is the principal threat to our democracy.

Politics is not predictions and politics is not observations. Politics is what we do. Politics is what we do, politics is what we create, by what we work for, by what we hope for and what we dare to imagine.

It is the belief that extremes and excesses of inequality must be reduced so that each person is free to fully develop his or her full potential. This is why we take precious time out of our lives and give it to politics.

Education and democracy have the same goal: the fullest possible development of human capabilities.

Above and beyond the question of how to grow the economy there is a legitimate concern about how to grow the quality of our lives.

We can and must move U.S. politics forward by means of committed participation.

I saw as a teacher how, if you take that spark of learning that those children have, and you ignite it, you can take a child from any background to a lifetime of creativity and accomplishment.