Barack Obama

I'm ready. Let's go.

This money that has been allocated is still not reaching ordinary folks here in New Orleans and in Louisiana. And until it does, all the numbers and the meetings and the planning that's being done is inadequate.

What we can't do is continue the approach that does not ensure the sort of political solutions that are needed in Iraq.

It's time for us to change that strategy.

We should start drawing down our troops, redeploying them to fight in Afghanistan and other places.

I did not see the president charting out a new course that would persuade either myself or the American people that -- that we're going about this thing in the right way.

I think it's important for us to have these conversations with him and see if we can work together.

He brings electricity to this race. He brings an alternative to Senator Clinton.

There are only so many donors that can give the big kind of money that you need.

Are there any circumstances that you can articulate in which we would say to the Maliki government that enough is enough and we are no longer committing our troops?

Politics has become so bitter and partisan, so gummed up by money and influence, that we can't tackle the big problems that demand solutions.

Certainly, I didn't expect to find myself in this position a year ago. I've been struck by how hungry we all are for a different kind of politics.

What leverage do we have that would provide us some assurance that, six months from now, you will not be sitting before us again, saying, well, it didn't work?

Both Republican and Democratic senators expressed grave concern about the situation in Iraq. I personally indicated that an escalation of troop levels in Iraq was a mistake.

We should do everything we can to ensure the American public can easily access and track how the Federal Government does its business, because we can't reduce waste, fraud, and abuse without knowing how, where, and why the federal money is…

I think that what's important to recognize is that the Iraqi Study Group did a good job of describing the situation. It is up to the president and this White House to actually execute in a change of strategy.

Well, my hope is, is that if nothing else, the Iraq Study Group serves as a corrective to the kinds of obstinance that we have seen out of the White House.

I think it would be hard not to see in this report a rebuke of a ideologically-driven strategy that has the been blind to what's been happening on the ground for the last several years.

Well, I think that what this administration has done is to become so obsessed with Iraq, and invest so much of our military, political, economic capital into Iraq, that we have been neglectful of what is one of the essential ingredients in…

I don't think there's anything new, but I am pleased to see that the Iraq Study Group got it right. I think that for the first time what we are seeing is a bipartisan agreement about the facts on the ground.

For, only through this phased redeployment can we send a clear message to the Iraqi factions that the United States is not going to hold together this country indefinitely.

For only through this phased redeployment can we send a clear message to the Iraqi factions that the United States is not going to hold together this country indefinitely. That it will be up to them to form a viable government that can…

Absolutely. I think -- I think the American people, at their core, are a decent people. I think that we still have prejudice in our midst, but I think that the vast majority of Americans are willing -- are willing to judge people on the…

But I think the important thing is not experienced per se, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney had the best resumes from Washington and initiated a fiasco in Iraq, but rather, does someone have the judgment necessary to learn from experience…

We should be under no illusions. There is chaos in Iraq at the moment.