[If not re-elected in 1864] then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the President elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he can not possibly save it afterwards.
President Obama has earned my vote on the basis of his excellent judicial appointments, his consensus-building foreign policy and the improvements he has brought about in the disastrous economy he inherited.
During the Reagan Administration, Bob Dole was present at a ceremony that included each living ex-president. Looking at a tableau of Ford, Carter and Nixon, Dole said, 'There they are: Hear No Evil, See No Evil and Evil.'
We're a long way from the embargo ending. Look at what just happened with the rollback of Obama's Cuba policies. Two idiot congressmen convinced our idiot president to make it harder on Cubans on the island.
So I analyzed that and decided I didn't want to be the president during a depression greater than the Great Depression, or the beginning of a depression greater than the Great Depression.
I'm just beginning to live the next chapter of my life. In other words, politics - being governor and president - is not the end of my life. It's a chapter.
I heard somebody say, 'Where's (Nelson) Mandela?' Well, Mandela's dead. Because Saddam killed all the Mandelas. --George W. Bush, on the former South African president, who is still very much alive, Washington, D.C., Sept. 20, 2007