Re: What inspires you?

Description: Everyday people.

Question:  What inspires you?

Transcript:  I’m inspired by a couple of things.  I’m inspired by people I see – whether it’s in my home state of New Jersey and people I’ve met across the country – who do remarkable things against overwhelming odds . . . ordinary people who are called upon to do extraordinary things.  And if they can do that considering maybe their station in life and the challenges they face, and yet they do extraordinary things for people who are . . . who might be considered ordinary people, then from my privileged position of being a United States Senator, I have every obligation in the world to do that and much more.  So I’m inspired by the stories of people I meet at home and across the country.  And I’m inspired by people I meet across the world as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and the great challenges they face in the own countries in promoting democracy and promoting human rights.  And I’m also inspired by the fact that . . .  My view is that one is obligated to . . .  It’s a personal philosophy.  One is obligated to make this world better than how they inherited it.  And so that’s what drives me every day – the inspiration that I take from people, and the view that I have as a personal philosophy as to why I seek to be a United States Senator in the first place.

Question: Is there room for vision in Washington?

Transcript: I think so.  I think so.  I think you’re limited only by . . .  I should say I think you create your own limitations.  You know I look at things and say – whether it’s a problem or an opportunity – what should it be?  What can it be?  And then work from that backwards and say, “Okay, this is what it should be.  This is what it can be.  How do I make it be those things?”  And I think that that . . . that’s the . . . it is an opportunity to think big.  I think it’s an opportunity to, you know, to do things both at home and abroad; in which you can make, you know, significant change.  I think we’re, you know . . .  There are things we’ve been doing in this session of the Senate that move us in that direction of thinking big – that no child in America should go to sleep at night without healthcare coverage.  The Senate just passed . . . the House just passed, gonna fight with the President about it, but ultimately that’s thinking big; that no child in America, the greatest country in the world, goes to sleep at night without healthcare.  I think it’s thinking big that we could create real, quality educational opportunity for every student in America to go to college; to have the ability to work hard and give something back to their country.  I think we just passed something that’s gonna move us in that direction.  The greatest amount of resources for that effort in money since the G.I. Bill.  And so I think there’s opportunities to think big.  It’s just a question of do you create your own limitations.

Recorded on: 9/12/07