I'm on the ground, I've been in swing states, I've been talking to the American people, I've been out there speaking on behalf of Obama's record, I've been in the trenches.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I've spent the last year listening to Americans, and the state of the union that George W. Bush lives in is very different from the state that most hardworking Americans are living in.
I've served my country.
Once you're done being president, you tend to want to defend your record more than plumb your inner feelings. I find it hard to imagine Obama going home at night and writing sensitive, introspective journal entries about his meeting with John Boehner.
I've been to the White House a number of times.
President Obama is casting his lot in the middle of a debate as old as America itself: Are we rugged individualists pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps? Or are we a nation of community, all connected and counting on one another?
I was in the trade field as White House fellow in the first Bush administration.
I'm quite grounded.
I learned to be far more skeptical of what I'm told by presidents, no matter who the presidents are, and also to be much more cautious, always, in any action or vote that could lead to the use of American military power and most particularly what we call 'boots on the ground.'
I have been in America only once since Mr. Clinton became your president - as a speaker at the United Nations.
I've been really at the highest levels of American political life.