I care so passionately about improving the quality of life for women and girls, not just here in the United States, but internationally as well. I am a single mom and I raised a daughter who is now a young adult.

I think that in a country as successful as ours, we still have a long way to go in terms of parity for women, whether it’s equal pay in the workforce or a whole host of other issues.

I think, traditionally, when the federal government has gathered statistics, it's been done in silos, so every agency really focuses on the statistics that are important to agency.

Put yourself in the path of lightning.

Part of what makes America strong is our resilience, tenacity, innovation and our willingness to be optimistic about our future. I know that President Obama is absolutely the best president to lead our country in the right direction.

President Obama stands ready to work with everyone, because that's what the American people expect and deserve - not for the short term political advantages, but the long term health of our country. We don't spend time trying to figure out what's in the minds of Republicans, we try to keep our focus on the American people.

Change is never fast enough to satisfy us. I still hear too many stories of women who go back to work too soon, but I do believe that we have been able to change the paradigm in attitudes towards family leave in that it's no longer a nice thing to do for women, it's a must do for competitiveness, and that's a big change over the last seven years. Changing it into an economic issue is a big sea change in the last seven years.