My all-time favourite political promise - more a boast than a promise, really - came from former Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau, who said in the lead-up to the 1976 Olympics, 'The Olympics can no more lose money than a man can have a baby.'

I like Iowa. I know Iowa. I've spent some time in Iowa. Good people in Iowa. It's a great state.

The answers to feeding hungry children is not fewer dollars to feed hungry children, it's to do more. It is to raise the minimum wage. It is to increase, not dismantle, the earned income tax credit. It is to make college more affordable for more middle class families, not more expensive. These are the things that grow our middle class.

I believe marriage is a human right, not a state right.

I think it's really, really important to grow the consensus and to realize that there is always some value that can be shared with another American, on any issue. Starting from those points of common belief and shared values is very, I think, important to forging the consensus that allows these issues to more forward.

Maryland is among the nation's most vulnerable states to the effects of sea level rise from climate change, and we are taking strong action to reduce carbon pollution.

As mayor, I got used to the fact that when you walked out of the house in the morning to pick up the newspaper in your boxers, there could be a camera there.

Marylanders have led the nation in adopting a balanced approach to revenues and investments because we know that in order to maintain and build the #1 public schools in the nation, we had to ask everyone to pay their fair share. We need Congress to do the same.

I believe that we do our country a disservice when we make it harder for new American immigrants to abide by the rules of the road and obtain drivers licenses.

History is full of times when the inevitable front-runner is inevitable right up until he or she is no longer inevitable.

A lot of our Democratic consultants have fallen into the self-defeating prescription that the candidate that runs the most negative ads wins. I have a new theory: Positive is the new negative.

There is no greater ladder into the middle class than education.

We have to raise the minimum wage.

There is no reason that billionaires should crowd us out from our democracy.

I am not surprised that this is a longer bit of work than many of us would have hoped. It is not where any of us would have hoped it is. And I think we need to give credit to the Republicans in Congress who have done everything they can to defeat every jobs bill and slow down the economy.

If workers have less money in their pockets to put food on the table, they will be spending less money; your economy will suffer.

There are more repercussions for a person being a chronic speeding violator in our country, than there is for a big bank being a chronic violator of S.E.C. rules!

I think it would be an extreme poverty indeed if there weren't more than one person willing to compete for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party.

We have concentrated wealth and capital to such a degree that the vast majority of us don't have the discretionary dollars to make our economy go and grow.

You can't strengthen the ranks of your middle class, you can't strengthen and grow the ranks of your businesses and family-owned businesses, unless you are fiscally responsible.

If a bank's too big so that it can't fail without hurting our economy, well then, it's too big.

Maryland first allowed early voting during the 2010 primary elections. In November 2012, more than 16 percent of registered voters in Maryland cast their ballots during the early voting period, and some polling places, particularly in our larger jurisdictions, witnessed early voting lines that were hours long.

Some people might look at Baltimore, from afar, and see nothing but hopelessness. I see, in Baltimore, tremendously good and compassionate people, and a tremendous opportunity to save a lot a lives.

Who can sit back as our towns and cities are torn apart by violence and be content with the status quo?

Job creation is a choice. Investing in cleaner, greener technologies that allow us to strike a more sustainable balance with the other living systems of this earth - this, too, is a choice.

We are already witnessing a transformation in the U.S. economy to increased production of lower carbon energy through fuel switching to natural gas and expansion of wind, solar, geothermal, and other renewable non-carbon intensive energy sources.

Let's talk about policing and public safety. Let's debate what works and what does not. We must abandon practices that do not work, and do more of the things that actually do work to save lives.

Progress is a choice. Job creation is a choice. Whether we give our children a future of more or a future of less - this, too, is a choice.

We have now under President Obama's leadership had 29 months in a row of private sector job growth. That stretch of positive private sector job growth hasn't happened since 2005. We still have a long way to go, but we are moving in the right direction.

When you create an economy where you subsidize corporate profits through a welfare program and food stamps in order to keep wages low in some perverse pursuit of 'competiveness,' than you reap the fruits of the anger that you sow.

Facts are facts: No president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the Great Depression inherited a worse economy, bigger job losses or deeper problems from his predecessor. But President Obama is moving America forward, not back.

None of us wants to pay more at the pump.

Typically, I don't get to unwind after a day at work.

Leadership is about making the right decision and the best decision before, sometimes, it becomes entirely popular.

Justice must be done in investigating the tragic death of Mr. Freddie Gray. His family deserves our deepest sympathy and respect for their loss, and our admiration for their courage in calling us, as a city, to act as our better selves.

While different states and cities might look to different strategies for protecting public safety, we all can agree on this: we lose too many American lives to gun violence.

So, look, in order to move our country forward, we have to do the things our parents and grandparents did. They believed enough in our country to invest in our country, to create jobs, to make modern investments. And those are the things that we need to get back to with a balanced approach.

But we should not lose sight of how far we are coming and what a big hole we were left by George W. Bush.

We have not recovered all that we lost in the Bush recession. That's why we need to continue to move forward.

Romney economics would spell disaster for America's middle class. In this economy there are shipbuilders and ship wreckers.

In times of adversity - for the country we love - Maryland always chooses to move forward. Progress is a choice. Job creation is a choice. Whether we move forward or back: this too is a choice.

Together with President Obama, we are moving America forward, not back.

Our parents and grandparents understood this truth deeply. They believed - as we do - that to create jobs, a modern economy requires modern investments: educating, innovating and rebuilding for our children's future. Building an economy to last, from the middle class up, not from the billionaires down.

Our story, Maryland's story, is the story of better choices and better results.

Some people see Baltimore as a hopeless place. Some have even made a lot of money on it.

The Republican Party is doubling down on this trickle-down theory that says, 'Thou shalt concentrate wealth at the very top of our society. Thou shalt remove regulation from wherever you find it, even on Wall Street. And thou shalt keep wages low for American workers so that we can be more competitive.'

I think former President Clinton and even Newt Gingrich have said it was a mistake to repeal Glass Steagall.

Oh, you know what, it's an honor to be mentioned in the company of those that might lead our country forward after President Obama.

Doing difficult things like passing marriage equality, passing the Dream Act, doing common sense things that allow new American immigrants to fully participate, pay their taxes, play by the rules and take care of their families. That's the inclusive America that I believe all of us want to move to.

I was motivated to go into public life because of the great chasm that exists between justice and injustice in our country. Nowhere is that divide greater than in America's cities.