'President Barack Obama, immediately following his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004: "I can unequivocally say I will not be running for national office in four years. ...   I am a believer in knowing what you're doing when you apply for a job, and I think that if I were to seriously consider running on a national ticket, I would essentially have to start now, before having served a day in the Senate.   There may be some who are comfortable with doing that, but I'm not one of those people."

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, on his successor, Joe Biden, who during the campaign termed Cheney the nation's worst, "most dangerous" vice president: "(Biden has) said that all the powers and responsibilities of the executive branch are laid out in Article I of the Constitution.   Well, they're not.   Article I of the Constitution is the one on the legislative branch.   Joe's been chairman of the Judiciary Committee, a member of the Judiciary Committee in the Senate for 36 years, teaches constitutional law back in Delaware, and can't keep straight which article of the Constitution provides for the legislature and which provides for the executive."

Former Sen. Fred Thompson, at last summer's Republican National Convention: "(Democratic nominee Obama is) history-making in that he is the most liberal, most inexperienced nominee ever to run for president.   Apparently (Democrats) believe that he would match up well with the history-making, Democrat-controlled Congress - history-making because it's the least accomplished and most unpopular Congress in our nation's history."'