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I'm not sure I had a political career for the future anyway. I'm not sure that politics was what I wanted to spend my life doing.

I entered politics from a completely different background from other people in this field, and that has helped me to see and deal with things differently.

I'm not just a politician, I'm a guy who has a real deep, substantive, commitment to education.

My passion for strengthening the community and making peoples' lives better is stronger now than when I first got into politics.

My focus is mainly on education. I believe education made all the difference for me, and it is certainly going to make all the difference for other children, too.

I made education the highest priority of my campaign - actually education and jobs - and the reason is a simple one: I think the future of America depends on it.

I had to make a choice - recede into the academic world, or wade into politics.

I wasn't a particularly brilliant student, but on the other hand, I was very active in Student Union affairs and in student politics.