A great democracy doesn't make it harder to vote than to buy an assault weapon.

It turns out that advancing equal opportunity and economic empowerment is both morally right and good economics. Why? Because discrimination, poverty and ignorance restrict growth. We know that investments in education, infrastructure and scientific and technological research increase growth. They increase good jobs, and they create new wealth for all of us.

Each generation of Americans must define what it means to be an American.

This will arguably be the third great revolution of America, if we can prove that we literally can live without having a dominant European culture.

Everybody has a gas-guzzling car because people like SUVs. They would like SUVs if they were hybrid vehicles that had the same horsepower and used less gasoline. Instead, what the auto manufacturers are doing is building SUVs that are hybrid vehicles that use the same amount of gasoline because they up the horsepower. That's a decision that they make to market irresponsible economic behavior. The American people like the SUVs, they have kids, they, they need them, they get around in them, but we have options.

So much of modern politics is focused not on honest differences of policy but on personal attacks.

We are more connected than ever before, more able to spread our ideas and beliefs, our anger and fears. As we exercise the right to advocate our views, and as we animate our supporters, we must all assume responsibility for our words and actions before they enter a vast echo chamber and reach those both serious and delirious, connected and unhinged.