There are three critical ingredients to democratic renewal and progressive change in America: good public policy, grassroots organizing and electoral politics.

Our politics are our deepest form of expression: they mirror our past experiences and reflect our dreams and aspirations for the future.

I saw as a teacher how, if you take that spark of learning that those children have, and you ignite it, you can take a child from any background to a lifetime of creativity and accomplishment.

Politics is not about winning for the sake of winning.

Expanding a failing, big-government program that reduces flexibility for the states and traps generations of Americans in dependency is not consistent with the kind of conservative solutions that Reagan sought during his terms as governor of California and president of the United States.

In any election, it's important that the public perceive that the election is held fairly.

The 1994 elections that brought Newt Gingrich to power in the House decisively shaped the remaining years of Bill Clinton's presidency, pushing him further to the right and bringing out his latent tendency to govern every day as if an election were being held the next.

Authoritarianism is not pretending anymore to be a real alternative to democracy, but we can see many more authoritarian practices and styles basically being smuggled into democratic governments.