From the New Yorker's "Online Only" content: David Remnick talks with Barack Obama at the American Magazine Conference in Phoenix.
"The biggest problem we have in our politics, and our campaigns press this upon candidates, is to lie about the choices that have to be made. And to obfuscate and to fudge. And so by the time the person arrives there people are already set up for disappointment...
"People don't want hard choices. Everybody's all happy and feel-good, until you actually say to them, Well, you know what? Actually, if we have a real energy plan it's going to cost something. There's not a magic energy store where we can buy a new gadget; we're going to have to invest and make some tough decisions. But I do think the American people respond better to that conversation than we give them credit for, and it's not tried often enough."