That America is in the calamity is a result of a certain amount of elitism in the Democratic Party where they're tied to the sensibility of the college-educated, multicultural crowd, of which I'm a part, which has created a sense where it's OK to say, "All the red state voters are stupid, they're all dummies, they're all racist, they're all backwards mouth-breathing knuckle-dragging ..." all that stuff. And that kind of elitism, which is first of all not true, is also not fair. It's also dumb strategy.

The chief moral obligation of the 21st Century is to build a green economy that is strong enough to lift people out of poverty. Those communities that were locked out of the last century's pollution-based economy must be locked into the new, clean and renewable economy. Our youth need green-collar jobs, not jails.

I used to be called the "Green Jack Kemp" because of my promotion of entrepreneurial and work-based solutions for poor people.

We tend to overlook the fact that a mature clean energy economy in fact will give an opportunity to ordinary people to earn more money as clean energy workers/entrepreneurs - and save more money, through conservation and energy efficiency.

Now, we can live in this little, liberal bubble bath where everybody's supposed to like everybody and do all this stuff and understand our pain and know our history. But that, maybe, works in your dorm, that doesn't work in the real world, and people need to get out of all that.

"Big" government? Who wants that? I just want effective government. That means America's government needs to be big in some places, small in others and non-existent in others.

If you think love is weak, that's a personal problem because real love is the strongest thing in the universe.