Political Quotes

“Mr. President, 10 years ago I gave my maiden speech on the floor of the Senate. I was at a desk on the far side of the Chamber. In the course of that speech, I happened to mention that it was my maiden speech. I had been here about a month. I went on. I can even remember the subject. It was the deficit, since we were in a unique position that we actually had a surplus in the Federal Government and I did not want to see that surplus piddled away. I started talking about the budget and why it was necessary to keep the surplus, to utilize the surplus to pay down the national debt over a 10-year period. Some minutes later, after I had said this was my maiden speech, all of a sudden the doors to the Chamber flung open and in came Senator Robert Byrd. As I was giving this first speech on the floor of the Senate, the greatest deliberative body in the world, he went over to his desk--the one that is draped with black cloth, and upon it sits the vase of flowers to note his passing--he sat there and he looked at me and listened to the rest of that oration. As I concluded, the Senator from West Virginia rose and said: Will the Senator from Florida yield? And I said: Of course I yield. He proceeded, off the top of his head, from that incredible, detailed memory, to lay out the history of maiden speeches on the floor of the Senate. He had been back in his office, and he had heard me, in the course of the audio from the television, say this was my maiden speech.…”