I want to deploy the leadership to meet the challenges that face us and to restore America's greatness.

My father's generation gave to my generation a land of wealth and purpose and world economic dominance.

No one is immune from the larger events of his or her time - the Depression, World War II, civil rights, Vietnam, the spring of 1989 in China. These events intrude upon our lives and radically affect our directions.

You are part of that horrid expression, the best and the brightest. It can be a terrible burden if you let it be, but it is the great challenge of your time. And being a warrior in that challenge should be wondrous.

America is living through the third economic revolution and our country doesn't really have a plan on how to deal with it, and when it does - like the president sort of outlined when he first got here - we have a Congress who seem incapable of acting on it.

In life and in politics, it's helpful to try to perceive the other person through the most generous lens.

It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.

That's the definition of 'success' for the modern Democrat Party. As many people dependent on government as possible is the objective.