LAMAR ALEXANDER

It is a rare American who does not have some story about how music has made our lives richer and more interesting, how it has changed our moods, brought out the best in our character and even sometimes helped us earn a living.

I think higher education is over-regulated.

In the Senate, where 60 votes are required to do anything important, you have to work with your colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

September 11 is one of our worst days but it brought out the best in us. It unified us as a country and showed our charitable instincts and reminded us of what we stood for and stand for.

President Bush and I had asked Congress to appropriate a half-billion dollars to school vouchers. We didn't get it, and we were disappointed. But we did not go out and form a corporation to pay for it. That would have been a problem.

To power the country by building 186,000 fifty-story wind turbines - and running 19,000 miles of new transmission lines - just seems impractical and preposterous compared to the idea of building a hundred new nuclear facilities primarily on the sites we already have.

I think people are looking for a president who has views and who sticks to those views. So, I think Governor Romney, Governor Perry, Governor Huntsman are all terrific candidates. I think we got a chance to elect a real, executive leader.

I think Americans are - particularly, independent voters are looking at Washington, and they see too many taxes, too much spending, too much debt, too many Washington takeovers, and they want to provide a check and a balance to what they see as a runaway, overreaching Washington government.

The main interest of most members of the Christian Coalition is the breakdown of the family. I think that's our biggest problem, and if the whole country was as concerned and active in issues of the family as members of the Christian Coalition are, we'd probably be better off as a country.

We've got a strong group of Republicans who are conservatives who know that their jobs aren't finished when they finish their speech.

We do all the appropriating. They do not do any of it down at the White House. They send a budget up here, and we don't have to pay any attention it to at all. We do what we want to do.

The job of mayor and Governor is becoming more and more like the job of university president, which I used to be; it looks like you are in charge, but you are not.

As Governor, I could think of only one way to unify our State that was made up of so many different climates, political beliefs and people, and that was our music.

I remember when President Bush, George W. Bush, came into office, he focused on No Child Left Behind, and with - and before very long, suddenly, Republicans were thought of as being as interested and as competent in education as Democrats, and why? Because they were talking about it and doing something about it.

We are the only country in the world that has taken people from so many different backgrounds, which is a great achievement by itself, but an even greater achievement is that we have turned all of that variety and diversity into unity.

We hear a lot about rebuilding Detroit, and we just spent $70 billion to bail out the auto industry - well, they need to be cost competitive, too. If they have high-cost energy, those suppliers are going to move to Japan or Mexico instead of Michigan and Tennessee.

Well, here's what I think. I mean, the people are saying, 'We don't want it,' and the Democrats are saying, 'We don't care. We're going to pass it anyway.' And so for the next three months, Washington will be consumed with the Democrats trying to jam this through in a very messy procedure an unpopular health care bill.

I love Washington, D.C.; I love this country, but I think over the last hundred years we've built up would I call an arrogant empire: people who think the rest of us are too stupid to make our own decisions.

I need to know the price of a gallon of milk and a dozen eggs. I need to know right now.

The composition of the primary is so different than when I was first elected governor in 1978.

I think there's plenty of evidence that we need to stop spewing so much carbon into the air, that we're contributing to climate change and that we ought to look for alternatives.

Most people who get in trouble in politics usually get in trouble because they're disconnected from the people they serve, and I don't think anybody in Tennessee, even people who won't vote for me, would accuse me of that.

Sooner or later, I need to begin to do what any candidate does in a presidential race; I need to begin to win.

I think, I think we need a Republican president from the real world to remind ourselves sometimes of what we need to do.

If Mr. Bush and Mr. Forbes don't get most of the votes, they should be arrested for wasting money.