 And frankly, being a woman I think gives me a slightly different take on a lot of the issues and on a lot of the solutions to the problems we face. |
| People just want to hear some common sense... and I bring to bear the experience in local government and state government and national government - I was the first woman in history on the Senate Finance Committee - not to mention the diplomatic international experience. |
| The reason that minorities and women don't have a better shot at getting elected to the Senate or to statewide office is because the campaign finance rules are so skewed as to make it very difficult for non-traditional candidates to raise the money necessary to get elected. |
| The fact is that the diversity in this political class serves the same interest as diversity in any arena, which is it stirs the competitive pot. |
| I think Americans want to believe in this country again. |
| So I think that if we want to have a Congress, if we want to have government that looks like America, if we want to have government that is truly a representative Democracy, then we need to clearly address how we get our campaign laws out of the way of Democracy. |
| We're failing our children with education, we're failing our environment. |
| I'm used to people not paying me a whole lot of attention and underestimating me and, frankly, for me a big challenge is to have people believe that I can be the president of the United States. |
| Magic lies in challenging what seems impossible. |
| The really important victory of the civil rights movement was that it made racism unpopular, whereas a generation ago at the turn of the last century, you had to embrace racism to get elected to anything. |
| I want to rebuild America. |
| I'd come back after having served as ambassador to New Zealand and found that I had real concerns about the direction in which this country was headed. |
| I think it does suggest that the American people really do want to listen to somebody who actually has some solutions, some answers, and gives them some hope. |
| I think the legacy of the civil rights movement is that now whites are more open to being represented by people of color or people who are women or, again, non-traditional candidates. |
| I really think that's the key, part of the spiritual renewal that America needs to have, the notion that we really can have confidence in a better tomorrow. |
