Divorce is one of the key predictors of poverty for a child growing up in a home that's broken.

I support workplace clean air. But a federal ban on smoking would mean that you couldn't smoke in your own home. I don't care what people do in their home.

So when we're really addressing issues like poverty, you can't do that without addressing the real driver of some of those, which is stable homes, families. So that's why to me those issues are important. They're not frivolous. They're critical economic issues.

I've had the privilege of working with Bono for the past few years in the One Campaign to fight AIDS and hunger and disease around the world. Bono is an Irishman and a great humanitarian. And I remember him telling me of his admiration for America.

Throughout his remarkable business and government career, Robert Rubin, now 65, has both worked exhaustively at reaching well-founded conclusions and rejected the idea that anything - and he means anything - can be a 'provable certainty.'

I very much favor democracy, but when there is a contradiction between democratic and Jewish values, the Jewish and Zionist values are more important.

Democracy can only spring from practising it early, and democratic action was not to expected from young people brought up under a close authoritarian system.

Democrats believe we must have comprehensive health care reform that includes giving the federal government authority to negotiate lower prices with drug companies.