“The best lesson my mom taught me was how to be scrappy. She was a beauty queen and had her own television show. But for her birthday, she’d buy herself a table saw. She put a roof on our house. My father—great as he is—couldn’t pick up a hammer. It was my mom who was up there pounding the shingles in. But more than that, she taught me how to be realistic and survive in weird situations.”

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“We don’t have to put the word compassionate in front of liberal the way conservatives do to prove that we give a shit about people. I think we should change what we call ourselves. I think we should be ruthless liberals. We need to show that we’re tough, that we really give a shit about people.”

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