I pledge to you today that as president in my first budget I will introduce the largest increase in special education ever.

Strong advocacy for education health care and worker safety will be indispensable if they are to get their fair share of President Bush's austere budget for the next fiscal year.

Abraham Lincoln comes from nothing has no education no money lives in the middle of nowhere on the frontier. And despite the fact that he suffers one tragedy and one setback after another through sheer force of will he becomes something extraordinary: not only the president but the person who almost single-handedly united the country.

President Obama believes in a country where we invest in education in roads and bridges in science and in the future so we can create new opportunities so the next kid can make it big and the kid afer that and the kid after that that's what President Obama believes.

I am running for president to help create a better future. A future where everyone who wants a job can find one. Where no senior fears for the security of their retirement. An America where every parent knows that their child will get an education that leads them to a good job and a bright horizon.

The Oval Office symbolizes... the Constitution the hopes and dreams and I'm going to say democracy. And when you have a dress code in the Supreme Court and a dress code on the floor of the Senate floor of the House I think it's appropriate to have an expectation that there will be a dress code that respects the office of the President.

The only book by a modern president that bears serious comparison with Obama's 'Dreams From My Father' is Jimmy Carter's short campaign autobiography 'Why Not the Best? ' published in 1975.

I came at age in the '60s and initially my hopes and dreams were invested in politics and the movements of the time - the anti-war movement the civil rights movement. I worked on Bobby Kennedy's campaign for president as a teenager in California and the night he was killed.

I believe history will come to view 9/11 as an event on par with November 22 1963 the date on which John F. Kennedy was murdered cutting short a presidency that was growing ever more promising. Dreams died that day in Dallas it is easy to imagine the 1960s turning out rather differently had President Kennedy lived.

After the Great Depression and after public urging a nationwide public competition was held to determine a design for a memorial that would honor President Thomas Jefferson's bold vision for westward expansion for America.

I was extended secret service protection during my presidential run in 1984 when I received the most death threats ever made toward a candidate.

When sudden death takes a president opportunities for new beginnings flourish among the ambitious and the tensions among such people can be dramatic as they were when President Kennedy was killed.

The message that President Obama delivered in his speech at Notre Dame was: morality is immoral. Pro-life is the extremist position not a moral position. Yet we should compromise and work to reduce abortions. Where's the compromise between life and death - and why work to reduce the number of them occurring if there's nothing wrong with them?

I've been looking at some video clips on YouTube of President Obama - then candidate Obama - going through Iowa making promises. The gap between his promises and his performance is the largest I've seen well since the Kardashian wedding and the promise of 'til death do we part.

In our brief national history we have shot four of our presidents worried five of them to death impeached one and hounded another out of office. And when all else fails we hold an election and assassinate their character.

You know my father as governor as president but I knew him as dad. I was so proud to have the Reagan name and to be Ronald Reagan's son.

My dad is a bank president and my mom was an accountant and they didn't think that seeking the life of a freelance writer was very practical you see. Of course I was just as determined to do it.

Baseball is the president tossing out the first ball of the season. And a scrubby schoolboy playing catch with his dad on a Mississippi farm.

It's a complex relationship when your dad happened to be president and you are president and then you have all the amateur psychology that goes on when people try to speculate about motivations.

You know my dad served in the President's Cabinet after his time as a governor. He told me he enjoyed being governor a lot more. Now I understand why. If I do my job well I can make a difference in people's lives and I can help our children realize their dreams.

My father was not a failure. After all he was the father of a president of the United States.

I know this president. And I can tell you that he cares deeply about the next generation of young women in this country - his daughters and everyone's daughters. President Obama had the courage to stand with Sandra Fluke. Without hesitation he defended her right to tell her story.

The presidents of colleges have to have some courage to step forward. You can't limit alcohol in college sports you have to get rid of it.

With his trademark courage and conviction President Reagan led us out of the Cold War spreading his vision of freedom resulting in the release of millions of people from the yoke of communism.