In my own professional career, I've tried to establish my own identity and my own track record so that if I were to entertain a run for office, there would be my own track record for voters to look at.

Renewables need to be developed in an environmentally responsible way. And, you know, I frankly have heard criticisms from even environmentalists saying that some wind farms impact gaming and fishing patterns, whether it's offshore or onshore.

It's said that once you win an election, that you win political capital, and that's kind of my intent, is to spend political capital on the Gulf Coast, among other areas.

You can be in a nonprofit organization. You can serve your fellow man in a variety of other ways. You don't necessarily have to win political office.

The public is going to be looking for examples of immaturity or inexperience or whatever it might be, but I think that's where we have to prove what we're capable of doing from a policy standpoint and from a leadership standpoint.

As it happens, Chicago is the nation's leader in municipal privatization efforts. That's right: The city that conservatives portray as the citadel of the power-grabbing, government-growing left has been selling itself off in pieces for years. It signed a 99-year lease for the Chicago Skyway, a toll road in the city's South Side, back in 2005.

For all history up to the end of the Cold War, summit meetings were historic and dramatic occasions, when leaders who controlled the destiny of much of the world met to change the world.

I had this perception based on my own frustrations with Washington, but I didn't realize until I launched this campaign how much people are looking for a new generation of leadership and a new approach in Washington.