Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I ask that I could briefly respond to the Senator's comments. Senator Coats and I work together on Intelligence. I have great respect for him. I understand the regional issues involved, so I understand the Senator's thinking. My thinking is, we get a strong vote on this today. This is simply a cloture vote. We have 60 votes. We have some time to see if we can work something out. One thing I have learned in this whole line of pursuit is, if you give your word, keep it. The only thing you have is your integrity, and I give you my word that we will continue to try to bring both sides together. I know this is a long journey. I know we will be blue-slipped and we have to come back and we will have to have a bill we can put a tax matter on. That is for a later day. I think we are into this, and so many people want kind of a clean vote, that if we have that, I am prepared to give you my word to continue to try to discuss this. My own view on these things is to do the very best we can, try to reach a compromise when issues are like this, and march on to the next thing. This has become far harder than I anticipated. I think we are relatively close to a solution, to a compromise. Whether Senator Coburn will accept it, I do not know. But I know these discussions are going on, and all I can do is pledge you my best effort to try to get to something that satisfies everybody. If you come from a large ethanol-producing State, I understand what this means.…”