Q&A;: Obama Talks with Rick Stengel

'I can make government and public service cool again.'

TIME managing editor Richard Stengel met with Senator Obama in Portsmouth, N.H., for a talk on their flight to New York City. Here are highlights of their conversation:

You've been engaging with Senator Clinton in a more direct way. Is there a danger of damaging your brand of new politics?
If you look at every public statement I've made over the past two months, you'd be hard-pressed to say that at any point we've been gratuitous, nasty, personal. We've had some policy differences that we described. We're running for the presidency...

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