Political Quotes

“Mr. President, it is Thursday afternoon, and it is the time of the week when I usually come down to talk about one of my constituents or some Alaskan who is doing a great thing for their community or the State or the country. I call that our Alaskan of the Week. I am going to suspend that this week because, to be perfectly honest, I think every one of my fellow Alaskans deserves a shout-out. Maybe they are all Alaskans of the Week this week for what happened and, then, their reaction to what happened in Alaska last Friday. The country read about it, but it is the earthquake--the very significant earthquake--that my State and my hometown of Anchorage just went through. Mr. President, as you know, last Friday morning, at 8:29 a.m., the citizens of Southcentral Alaska, which includes Anchorage and the Mat- Su Valley, were doing what they always do on a Friday morning. People were in their offices, driving to work, drinking coffee at home, or maybe taking a run on many of the paved trails throughout our wonderful city. Students were either in school or almost getting to school, sitting at their desks with pencils and pens in hand, and then the shaking began. It felt like it went on forever. I was here in DC. My wife was at our home in Anchorage. She sent me a text and said: We are having a big, massive earthquake. And we did. It was 7.0 on the Richter scale, which is a big earthquake--a big earthquake even for Alaska.…”