Barack Obama in 2008 Politico pre-Potomac Primary interviews

On Drugs: Look at needle exchange; and expand treatment

A: I think it is important that we are targeting HIV/AIDS resources into the communities where we’re seeing the highest growth rates. That means education and prevention, particularly with young people. It means that we have to look at drastic measure, potentially like needle exchange in order to insure that drug users are not transmitting the disease to each other. And we’ve got to expand on treatment programs. And all of that is going to cost some money and some time. But again, if we think about the enormous costs of homelessness, or the enormous cost of HIV/AIDS, over the long term, as people visit emergency rooms, etc. The more we are investing in that ounce of prevention the better off we’re going to be.

On Education: Supports charter schools; it’s important to experiment

A: We had a roundtable about what we need to do with the schools. I’ve consistently said, we need to support charter schools. I think it is important to experiment, by looking at how we can reward excellence in the classroom.

Q: Have teacher’s unions been an impediment to that kind of reform?

A: They haven’t been thrilled with me talking about these kinds of issues. And my sister is a teacher, so I am a strong support of teachers, but I’m not going to be bound by just a certain way of talking about these things, in order for us to move forward on behalf of our kids. And I think a lot of teachers want to talk about how to continually improve performance. That’s not a conservative issue or liberal issue. If you’re a progressive, you’ve got to be worried about how the federal government is spending its revenue, because we don’t have enough money to spend on things like early childhood education that are so important.

On Government Reform: Give D.C. the opportunity to elect its own representatives

A: The first thing I would do would be to move forward with an agenda to make sure that we give D.C. the opportunity to elect its own representatives and have some political power on Capitol Hill. Representation would make a big difference. I want to deal with the homeless situation here in Washington, D.C. I think it is a travesty that we’ve got men--and increasingly women--families, across the street and the in shadow of this great capital, that shows a lack of concern, not just for the capital, but for American, when we are allowing something like that to happen. And as president of the United States I would be offended to drive by it. It’s something that we are going to focus on directly.

On Gun Control: Respect 2nd Amendment, but local gun bans ok

A: Because I think we have two conflicting traditions in this country. I think it’s important for us to recognize that we’ve got a tradition of handgun ownership and gun ownership generally. And a lot of law-abiding citizens use it for hunting, for sportsmanship, and for protecting their families. We also have a violence on the streets that is the result of illegal handgun usage. And so I think there is nothing wrong with a community saying we are going to take those illegal handguns off the streets. And cracking down on the various loopholes that exist in terms of background checks for children, the mentally ill. We can have reasonable, thoughtful gun control measure that I think respect the Second Amendment and people’s traditions.

On Principles & Values: Don’t seat MI & FL delegates; they’re based on non-campaign

A: Well, here’s what I think is important. We’ve got to make sure that whoever wins the most votes, the most states, the most delegates, that they are the nominee [and not] somehow overturned by party insiders.

Q: What do you think should happen, then, to the delegates in Michigan and Florida? Shouldn’t their votes be counted?

A: You know, all we’ve done in this process is to just follow the rules as they’ve been laid out. We abided by the rules that had been set up by the DNC, so we didn’t campaign there.

Q: Is Sen. Clinton trying to change the rules in the middle of the game?

A: It certainly wouldn’t be fair to allocate delegates based on a non-campaign. We did not campaign in those states. So there may be ways that we can manage this--having a caucus for example

On Principles & Values: Labels like “most liberal” prevent problem-solving

A: Well, an example of why I was rated the most liberal was because I wanted an impartial office of public integrity. Now, I didn’t know that it was a Democratic issue. I thought that was a good government issue that a lot of Republicans would like to see. So that’s the problem with some of these ratings--how they score things. It uses categories that I think don’t make sense to a lot of Americans.

Q: Are you proud of that designation? To be known as the most liberal voting senator?

A: I don’t think you heard what I just said, which is that the designations don’t make sense. This is what I would call old politics. This is the stuff we’re trying to get rid of. Because the problem is, when we start breaking down into conservative & liberal, [that creates nothing but partisanship]. Those old categories don’t work, and they’re preventing us from solving them problems.

On Principles & Values: FactCheck: Ranked most liberal in Senate, based on 99 votes

Obama’s answer could mislead voters. Although we agree that rankings and labels sometimes don’t have much substance behind them, Obama cited just one of 99 Senate votes selected by National Journal’s reporters and editors for the study. The nonpartisan public policy magazine’s analysis was done according to a rigorous process the publication has been using since 1981. Most of the votes chosen had to do with the minimum wage, renewable energy, health insurance for children, immigration, embryonic stem cell research, and other issues on which it’s not too surprising to see a divide between liberals and conservatives. Clinton ranked 16th most liberal in the Senate

On War & Peace: Humanitarian aid now for displaced Iraqis

A: If we are doing this right, if we have a phased redeployment where we’re as careful getting out as we were careless getting in, then there’ not reason why we shouldn’t be able to prevent the wholesale slaughter some people have suggested might occur. And part of that means we are engaging in the diplomatic efforts that are required within Iraq, among friends, like Egypt, and Turkey and Saudi Arabia, but also enemies like Iran and Syria. They have to have buy-in into that process. We have to have humanitarian aid now. We also have two-and-a-half million displaced people inside of Iraq and several million more outside of Iraq. We should be ramping up assistance to them right now. But I always reserve the right, in conjunction with a broader international effort, to prevent genocide or any wholesale slaughter than might happen inside of Iraq or anyplace else.

On War & Peace: FactCheck: Overstated displaced Iraqis; actually 4.2 million