If I was just running the textbook campaign, doing the conventional thing, I probably wasn't going to win, because Senator Clinton was going to be much more capable of doing that than I would be.

Well, you know, my sense is, is that, sooner or later, it was going to come up. I wish it could have come up in a calmer way. I think it, nevertheless, serves a purpose. And, hopefully, the American people will benefit from the debate.

But the anger is real, it is powerful, and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

So, when they are told to bus their children to a school across town, when they hear that an African-American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never…

Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in the church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with…

I can no more disown him than I can disown my white grandmother, a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed…

And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care or education or the need to find good jobs for every American.

As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding and baptized my children.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress had been made; as if this country -- a country that has made it possible…

I understand the anger. It's time for us to move to a new place.

To the larger aspirations of all Americans: the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man who's been laid off.