You have to keep a strong sense of who you really are - and I have a pretty strong sense of myself. It gets me in trouble when I say this, but I don't think of myself as a politician. I've always tried to be honest when communicating with people.
We should be tolerant, fair, open, and we should understand the rights that all people have in our society.
The Republican Party is a much bigger tent than people give it credit for. We have a lot of what I guess you all call moderate Republicans.
My father taught me, in boxing, that when you - particularly when you get hit in the face for the first time - you're going to panic. That instead of panicking, just accept it. Stay calm. And any time anybody hits you, they always leave themselves open to be hit.
I think one of the biggest mistakes that America has made - and maybe the world because this is, sort of, the core of communism and socialism - is that you can have perfect solutions to social problems like poverty, like crime. You're not going to eliminate all crime. Maybe you'll never eliminate all poverty.
I was pretty successful before Sept. 11 and fully expected that when I left being mayor I would be very successful.
