Are you conducting opposition research on yourself again to make sure nothing was missed those first two times?

Of course. We have to be prepared before anybody else about anything.

After you declared your candidacy for president at the beginning of the month, the Republican National Committee put out a document pointing out that while you claimed to speak for regular, mainstream America, you vote around 90 percent of the time with the very liberal Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and around that often with Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.

My response is that I come from a small town in North Carolina; I come from a community and a family that is at the heart of mainstream America. I have lived my whole life with these people and I think my views are in line with their views. The America I come from is mainstream America -- it's also, by the way, the mainstream South. We believe in opportunity -- education, economic -- for everybody, no matter who their family is, no matter where they come from, no matter what the color of their skin is, no matter what language they speak. I believe that's what mainstream America believes in.

And you know as well as I do that a lot of those votes we cast, on both sides of the aisle, are procedural.

One way you differentiate yourself from other Democrats is on the economy. In a speech you recently gave you discussed deficit reduction, and how Democrats historically spend too much. But other than your proposal to cut the government's non-law enforcement and national security workforce by 10 percent, what would you cut?

Well, that's the place I would start. That's actually the biggest component in what I was suggesting. And the way we do that is through the natural attrition process.

Yes, but there's little will in Washington to do such cutting. Even with the Republicans -- the party against big government -- running the White House and Congress, and massive deficits returning, it just doesn't happen. How would you be able to change things?

I think it's difficult to do that in isolation. The way to create the kind of support needed to get it passed is to do it in conjunction with an overall program [focused on] balanced budgets. In order to do it, and to get Democratic support, and in order to generate political support, you have to have both components.

In the stories about your candidacy, one of the reasons always cited for your having a good chance to secure the Democratic nomination is your looks. People magazine once named you to its list of most beautiful people, and Elle named you sexiest politician. What do you think when you hear this? How much does it matter?

I don't think it does matter. And I don't think it will matter. I think that people who suggest things like that don't give the American people enough credit.

People will judge us based on what they see, what they hear, what our ideas are and what our vision is. That's how they'll make their evaluation. That's how they'll decide whether I'm somebody they can trust, someone they believe can lead, someone who understands their problems and has real ideas. I do not think they'll vote for or elect a president of the United States based on superficial things.

Is it at least flattering? Does it make you feel good?

No, it's completely unimportant.

So, before you go, do you have an answer yet on who your favorite philosopher is?

I don't have a favorite philosopher, that's why I didn't have an answer for that question.

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