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I was the only person of color in the Senate, and my colleagues were Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms and Trent Lott.

When I was growing up, my white friends would call me: 'Hey, Chief!' Even when I go to work now, people call me 'Chief.'

I am an American. Black. Conservative. I don't use African-American, because I'm American, I'm black and I'm conservative. I don't like people trying to label me. African- American is socially acceptable for some people, but I am not some people.

I lived in an all-black neighborhood, followed by an all-white one, and other kids in the always called me Mexican in both neighborhoods.

I knew that there were several, among African-American leaders, who had been put out by me because of my failure or reluctance to endorse Sen. Kerry.

I have always, or for the most part, identified myself as a biracial person.

I injured myself politically when I took on Jesse Jackson' in the 1988 presidential campaign. I was too strident. I didn't recognize the emotional tie that he had with all black voters.

Often people would mistake me for white when I was younger, and I didn't correct them; there would be a period of time that they just thought I was.

In 2008, I was one of the young feminist whippersnappers who voted for Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries - or as many of my older counterparts called me at the time, a traitor.