“When I was elected to head the German government, I was fortunate enou...” — Helmut Kohl Quote

When I was elected to head the German government, I was fortunate enough to find a partner in Francois Mitterrand.

Political life is like this - elections go back and forth. Representative democracy can only be successful if one sits down and says, 'That's it. I will connect myself,' - as I did - 'connect my existence to a political project.' Then you automatically have in your party a lot of people who say, 'If that fails, so do I'.

George Bush was for me the most important ally on the road to German unity.

As a child, I personally didn't really get to know any Jews. I was eight years old when the Night of Broken Glass happened. And Ludwigshafen was purely a workers' city, so we didn't have a very big Jewish community. What I did know about the Jews, I heard from my mother. My mother was very much pro-Jewish.

I am a strong supporter of President Obama and was the first national Hispanic elected official to endorse him, and I want him to be reelected in 2012.

It's a great honor to me to be named to the Hall of Fame. It's very hard for me to even imagine that I would ever be elected to it.

Do we hate our women? I don't think so. In fact, Pakistan has more women representation in government than the U.S., and we have twice elected a female head of state.

I could never be elected.

You want to represent the country and you want elected officials that are representative of the country.