RUSSERT: You said each of you have strengths and weaknesses. I want to ask each of you quickly, your greatest strength, your greatest weakness.
OBAMA: My greatest strength, I think is the ability to bring people together from different perspectives to get them to recognize what they have in common and to move people in a different direction. And as I indicated before, my greatest weakness, I think, is when it comes to — I’ll give you a very good example.
OBAMA: I ask my staff member to hand me paper until two seconds before I need it because I will lose it. You know, the —- you know…
(LAUGHTER)
And my desk and my office doesn’t look good. I’ve got to have somebody around me who is keeping track of that stuff.
And that’s not trivial; I need to have good people in place who can make sure that systems run. That’s what I’ve always done, and that’s why we run not only a good campaign, but a good U.S. Senate office.
RUSSERT: Senator Edwards, greatest strength, greatest weakness?
EDWARDS: I think my greatest strength is that for 54 years, I’ve been fighting with every fiber of my being.
In the beginning, the fight was for me. Growing up in mill towns and mill villages, I had to literally fight to survive.
But then I spent 20 years in courtrooms fighting for children and families against really powerful well-financed interests. I learned from that experience, by the way, that if you’re tough enough and you’re strong enough and you got the guts and you’re smart enough, you can win. That’s a fight that can be won.
It can be won in Washington, too, by the way.
And I’ve continued that entire fight my entire time in public life.
EDWARDS: So I’ve got what it takes inside to fight on behalf of the American people and on behalf of the middle class.
I think weakness, I sometimes have a very powerful emotional response to pain that I see around me, when I see a man like Donnie Ingram (ph), who I met a few months ago in South Carolina, who worked for 33 years in the mill, reminded me very much of the kind of people that I grew up with, who’s about to lose his job, has no idea where he’s going to go, what he’s going to do.
I mean, his dignity and self-respect is at issue. And I feel that in a really personal way and in a very emotional way. And I think sometimes that can undermine what you need to do.
RUSSERT: Senator Clinton?
CLINTON: Well, I am passionately committed to this country and what it stands for. I’m a product of the changes that have already occurred, and I want to be an instrument for making those changes alive and real in the lives of Americans, particularly children.
CLINTON: That’s what I’ve done for 35 years. It is really my life’s work. It is something that comes out of my own experience, both in my family and in my church that, you know, I’ve been blessed. I think to whom much is given, much is expected.
So I have tried to create opportunities, both on an individual basis, intervening to help people who have no where else to turn, to be their champion. And then to make those changes. And I think I can deliver change. I think I understand how to make it possible for more people to live up to their God-given potential.
I get impatient. I get, you know, really frustrated when people don’t seem to understand that we can do so much more to help each other. Sometimes I come across that way. I admit that. I get very concerned about, you know, pushing further and faster than perhaps people are ready to go.
Haha, and then she proceeded to attack Barack as a bad manager since he has a messy desk.
Later, he told NPR
"I think Sen. Edwards said he was too passionate about helping poor people, and Sen. Clinton said she was too impatient to move the country forward," Obama tells NPR. "I was trying to answer the question 'What's your greatest weakness?' as opposed to 'What's your greatest strength disguised as a weakness?'"
"I should have said I like to help old ladies across the street," he says.
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