I am a candid interview and I have a dark and dry sense of humor - a very Canadian sense of humor and I am only learning now stupidly that you can't read tongue. When I say something funny in a newspaper and I meant it to be funny it doesn't read that way.

Probably it is impossible for humor to be ever a revolutionary weapon. Candide can do little more than generate irony.

Humor is very very risky particularly for a candidate unless he's been in so long that it just doesn't matter and he's not running for president. But it's just that people are so sensitive and so touchy and you're just going to upset somebody without ever realizing it.

To my great disappointment it appears that the politics of division are making a big comeback. Many Americans share my disappointment - especially those who were filled with great hope a few years ago when then-Senator Obama announced his candidacy in Springfield Illinois.

Apparently a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.

My main objective is to prepare candidates for professional baseball however the majority of our graduates will go home as much better qualified amateurs.

And I just think that we're at a point in our economic life here in our state - and - and candidly across the country where increased taxes is just the wrong way to go. The people of our state are not convinced that state government county government local government has done all they can with the money we already give them rather than the money that we have before.

Candidly I believe most corporations actually don't mind big government.

Well first of all I think that a lot of the voters who are voting for the tea party candidates have really good impulses. That is they believe that for years and years and years the people with wealth and power or government power have done well and ordinary people have not. That's true.

My passion for gardening may strike some as selfish or merely an act of resignation in the face of overwhelming problems that beset the world. It is neither. I have found that each garden is just what Voltaire proposed in Candide: a microcosm of a just and beautiful society.

Up against the corporate government voters find themselves asked to choose between look-alike candidates from two parties vying to see who takes the marching orders from their campaign paymasters and their future employers. The money of vested interest nullifies genuine voter choice and trust.

The Republican Party is not in the hands of the Jewish lobby in America as the Democratic Party must look quite often to Jewish money to finance candidates.

The reason that minorities and women don't have a better shot at getting elected to the Senate or to statewide office is because the campaign finance rules are so skewed as to make it very difficult for non-traditional candidates to raise the money necessary to get elected.

I'm not Candide nor Dr Pangloss but we know that faith moves mountains.

It's important to ask candidates about their beliefs in part because politicians frequently exploit religious faith - often with the idea that voters will be more likely to unthinkingly accept certain political positions so long as they arise from religious belief.

The question Americans should ask is not whether a candidate is affiliated with a particular faith but rather whether that candidate's faith makes it more likely he or she will support policies that align with their values.

I have come to the conclusion that while a candidate's faith matters what's most important is how he or she applies that faith.

Each party steals so many articles of faith from the other and the candidates spend so much time making each other's speeches that by the time election day is past there is nothing much to do save turn the sitting rascals out and let a new gang in.

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

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.

That's what my Dad always told me on the ballot they should always have a third choice like none of the above then if enough people picked that they'd have to get new candidates.

The people of South Carolina support conservatives who are trying to push real change and the people of South Carolina expect their presidential candidates to back them up when they show courage.

I want to find the candidates who understand the principles of American exceptionalism and have the character the courage and the confidence to actually lead the greatest nation in the world.

In politics there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers and then there are those like John McCain who use their careers to promote change.