For many years, I didn't even like the idea of doing a one-person play. Public speaking got me past that. I've always been good at public speaking, but I never really enjoyed it. Then I started to really enjoy it, and that's made all the difference.

Democracy is not theater - it determines life and death!

Though pundits and politicians, weary of the story, are happy to omit facts about voting systems and their private contractors running our public elections, such omissions impair voters and democracy itself.

I think especially older people, and I count myself one, in the business - people get to know who you really are. So there comes a time when you can't just go in and audition without everybody knowing exactly how you've brought up your kids, what you said at the meeting, what kind of food you cook.

I don't like politics. I am not aligned to any political party. I have friends in all political parties.

Technology and the Internet are not just changing politics here in the U.S. It's also happening abroad. In the Philippines, where I grew up, grassroots organizers used text messaging to help overthrow a president.

The rule of law, and the idea that it applies to everyone regardless of what office that person might hold, is the chief ingredient in our democracy.

Historically, it has required a combination of favorable employment trends and active government intervention to lower the percentage of people in poverty and raise living standards for the working middle class.