For me, choosing to perform in drag, because of all the things I enjoy about it, is a political act.
It's clear to me now that we've got to reach out to the Arab Sunni community in particular in an effort to cause some moderate political activity to take place so they join the future of Iraq.
People close to me personally, politically, have expressed frustration that I'm not the political animal that they wish that I were.
I love books, I love art, I'm a fanatic nature and wildlife person. People assume I'm a political animal, power hungry, wanting to run for office. And anyone who knows me knows that none of that's true.
I'm not being cynical, but I have to find work that is allowing me to pay bills and keep our lives going in a way that we're used to and trying not to betray my political beliefs while I'm doing it. Listen, it's a tough thing to do.
To me, this is from a Buddhist perspective or whatever, sometimes people who are working out their political beliefs, they can rage against the man, and yet at the same time can be oblivious to their own way of stepping on the foot of the person right next to them.
Those life experiences that helped shaped my political beliefs are with me in every position I take and every vote that I cast - whether it be in favor of comprehensive immigration reform, strengthening Social Security and Medicare, or improving our nation's education system.
My life will not be defined by a single political campaign. Those will come and go. But what has driven me to run for elected office in the past still drives me today: the knowledge that heroes do walk among us with tremendous strength and power.
If you track something like a political campaign and parcel out what's being communicated in a literal and narrative sense, and what's being communicated by means of emotional and symbolic language, you might find that it's the latter elements that absolutely dominate and move people. It makes me want to take that language and expose it.
A wise governor told me a long time ago, political capital you don't get more of by keeping it. You get it by using it.
When I first ran for governor, the political class and party leaders opposed me with great vigor, and some even said if I won the primary they would never vote for me. But the voters had other ideas, and they are the only ones who count.
Something happened during the 1980s - perhaps the political climate of that time - that caused me to ask how a people would become part of a system that oppresses their own people.
Political debate is of no interest to me. What I want are practical solutions.
'Memory.' 'Race.' 'Murder.' That's what they say about me. I am an elegiac poet. I have some historical questions, and I'm grappling with ways to make sense of history; why it still haunts us in our most intimate relationships with each other, but also in our political decisions.
Men like me, who merely wish to establish political freedom, will in such circumstances lose all their influence, and others will get influence who may become dangerous to all established interests whatsoever.
My feet are firmly planted in my political ideology. To me, it's being authentic in every area, and that includes politics.
Me talking about political issues on a social platform was kind of an accident. It's something that's a part of my everyday - it's super central to who I am as a person.
When I defend our right to hunt and fish on public lands, rivers and streams. Or work for better schools. And more good paying jobs that can support a family. Those aren't political issues to me. They're personal.
The Congress leadership always denied responsibilities to me both within the government and within the party organisation... They would always tell me my image as a Hindu leader was a constraint on my capacity as a political leader.
What is frustrating people, me included, is that democratic action affects elections but what we get then from political leaders is greenwash.
