But getting your party structure right may also be a precondition for getting your policies right.

Barbara Castle should have been Labour's - and Britain's - first female prime minister. What a role model she would have been: passionate, fiery, and absolutely committed to social justice.

I have very real concerns about the civil liberties implications of ultimately requiring every resident to submit themselves for compulsory fingerprinting or some other biometric test.

We just have to be crystal clear that if we were to abandon all the reforms made over some very painful years in the Labour party, we would be consigned back to opposition.

The first time I began to really think about politics was in fifth grade, during President Reagan's first term.

In theory, taxes should be like shopping. What I buy is government services. What I pay are my taxes.

I am a true constitutionalist, and whether it is our state's rights, personal property rights or the right to bear arms, the federal government will know if they come to Michigan trying to trample our rights, it will have a fight on its hands under a Bouchard administration.

The values that I have are the values I was raised with, from where I'm from, which is a middle-class place. So that informs everything about me, my politics and all that stuff. I mean, politically, I vote against my own self-interest at every election. I actively ask these people to raise my taxes.