Barack Obama: “George Bush and John McCain don't have a strategy for success in Iraq; they have a strategy for staying in Iraq.”

A drift towards extremism was "not inevitable

When we choose, when we make that decision, I do believe – and there is evidence for this – that the world gets incrementally better, and that is a worthy goal and it’s worth fighting for.

Because if this becomes the new normal, there’s no reason to believe it will stop with her — or that future presidents, in either party, won’t do the same.

It is a decision about how do we face and embrace this finite amount of time we have on the planet.