As a consultant at McKinsey, I learned the value of data and the ability to shape that information into an answer.
Those of us who work in politics can only make ourselves useful if our heads are filled with things that we can contribute to the political space.
The death penalty has been one of many examples where racial discrimination has played out. You can see it in the simple fact that someone convicted of the same crime is more likely to face the death penalty if they are black.
I am not skilled enough or energetic enough to craft a persona. I just have to be who I am and hope people like it.
In local government, it's very clear to your customers - your citizens - whether or not you're delivering. Either that pothole gets filled in, or it doesn't. The results are very much on display, and that creates a very healthy pressure to innovate.
What's worse: a president who is very faithful to an ideology that you find extreme, or a president who is very cynical and appears to have no ideology at all? Neither one of those things is great.
I am a Democrat because I believe in protecting freedom, fairness, families, and the future.
So, I've learned - as a young Democrat, I've learned to think cautiously before offering advice to Nancy Pelosi.
As Democrats and progressives look to the future, we should remember our most essential values.
Donald Trump got elected because, in his twisted way, he pointed out the huge troubles in our economy and our democracy.
There's a lot to be said for expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit.
When people are economically or socially dislocated, they are always more vulnerable to being radicalized.
In 'Palaces for the People,' Eric Klinenberg offers a new perspective on what people and places have to do with each other, by looking at the social side of our physical spaces.
Experiences with friends or family members coming out have helped millions of Americans to see past stereotypes and better understand what being gay is - and is not.
Because reading is a way of putting yourself in someone else's experience, especially reading fiction.
As a mayor, my instinct is to really think about how to get something done and not to make the promise unless you have some view of the pathway. You don't have to have it all figured out, but you have to have a pathway there.
The most moving responses I got to my coming out in the first place was people, like teenagers, letting me know that it made their lives easier in some way.
A Midwestern municipal government isn't the first thing that leaps to mind when you think of innovation, but it ought to be.
Our right to practice our faith freely is respected up to the point where doing so involves harming others.
Tunisians are very friendly.