You can be stern and forthright, and that's my management style, but when you lose it totally, that's a sign of weakness.

That's what governors do, they wrestle with the issues, they find solutions and they move the agenda forward. At the appropriate time we'll talk about all of these issues, while remembering that our party is a big tent party. We lose when we try to become exclusive to one particular set of issues.

For those of us who have lived abroad and seen our nation in a highly competitive 21st century, and kind of see where this world is going - unless we are able to strengthen our core, we're going to see the end of the American century. And that is totally unacceptable.

It's taken a lot of presidents to get us where we are today, a lot of deployments, a lot of wars, a lot engagements. You add them all up.

If you can't define a winning exit strategy for the American people, where we somehow come out ahead, then we're wasting our money, and we're wasting our strategic resources.

I'm not sure it's the stimulus money that will necessarily allow the economy to recover. It will help to fortify our budgets, frankly, to ensure that there isn't as much backsliding in the areas of education and healthcare, for example.