The American people have lost confidence in George Bush because he hasn't leveled with them, ... We need a candidate who will meet the test of reaching a conclusion and having the courage to stick with it.

We need to rebuild the confidence of the American people ... in our government's ability to protect them from attack, whether it comes from nature or from terrorists, ... The government simply did not act quickly and effectively enough.

In some sense, not just the Gulf Coast was attacked, but America's self-confidence.

This is a moment of crisis, not just in the Gulf Coast, but in America's self-confidence in the way government responds to attacks.

The dollar is at an all-time low, and 3 million people lost their jobs. Last month, when the administration said we'd expect to see 150,000 new jobs created, we ended up seeing 1,000 -- a very lame performance.

The way we're really going to grow the economy is to invest in people, to invest in innovation, to have the federal government put money in the kind of research that will create the new high-technology, biotechnology industries that will create the millions of new jobs.