A concrete agenda and landslide victory might not even guarantee a president his mandate in a capital as polarized as Washington.

At the start of his second term, one wonders less about Obama's fitness than his willingness: Why doesn't he do more to build and maintain the relationships required to govern in era of polarization?

It's a deft trick to turn American exceptionalism into an exceptional political tactic.

According to a Public Policy Polling survey, most Americans find lice and colonoscopies more appealing than Capitol Hill.

With gridlock the norm, Congress's approval rating is below 10 percent and the public has lost faith in its national leadership.

Blending hard-bitten realism with long-view optimism, Obama said that every 20 or 30 years brings a new cycle of pessimism in America.

Although we were never pals and occasionally butted heads, my relationship with Clinton and his wife, Hillary, made me a better journalist.

President George W. Bush won reelection in 2004 largely because he was seen as comfortable in his own skin, while rival John Kerry was viewed as a flip-flopping opportunist.

Obama might do well to remember that his fast rise from the Illinois state Senate was due in large part to an uncanny ability to make friends and find mentors.

I'm hearing echoes of Bill Clinton, circa 1996, in President Obama's reelection rhetoric.

For a man who has compared himself to Theodore Roosevelt and the nation's challenges to those of the Gilded Age, Obama put forward a tepid agenda.

In today's romantic climate, many people are plagued by what we will call "the upgrade problem". Singles constantly wonder whether there is a better match, an upgrade.

He was always mindful of keeping his spirits in check lest they soar unreasonably high.

Each one of us is more than the worst thing we've ever done.

Never let the things you want make you forget the things you have.

Men get together in pretentious councils to decide what God is, what God thinks, what God wants the rest of us to do for him, and the one thing he never fails to want is more money.

We may assume that we keep people waiting symbolically because we do not wish to see them and that our anxiety is due not to being late, but to having to see them at all.

Politics...You see, it depends on what kind of politics. What we did during my father's generation was a duty. And it was beautiful because its goal was the conquest of freedom.

Who owns your time owns your mind. Change your time and you change your mind. Change your mind and you change your world.

I saw people rise out of poverty right in front of me. ... It made me believe that the market was the most powerful tool for change that we could hope to have.

Nothing worthwhile was ever accomplished without the will to start, the enthusiasm to continue and, regardless of temporary obstacles, the persistence to complete