Discontent with Republican is not going to be enough for us to win. We have got to offer more than to replace bad leadership with ordinary leadership. We have to offer creative leadership and vision.

He has watched jobs and people leave. Mostly young, well educated people -- our future. But discontent with the Republicans isn't going to be enough. We have to offer to the people leadership with creative leadership.

I grew up on the south side of Chicago, most of that time on welfare. My mother and sister and I used to live with my grandparents and various cousins. We shared a two-bedroom tenement, and the three of us slept in one of those bedrooms and had a set of bunk beds.

We need a government that is what we are at our best. Smart, efficient, pragmatic and compassionate.

I'd like to have another opportunity to serve. I believe in service. I enjoy it. I also like coming and going, you know, because I think that my private-sector life has contributed to how I think about public-sector challenges and what I do in the public sector.

My most vivid memory of my father centers on the day he left. It was warm, and my mother was especially short with Rhonda and me that afternoon, which I attributed to the heat. I was oblivious to the mounting hostilities in our basement apartment.