Political Quotes

“Mr. President, this year's political campaigns are different than just 2 years ago. There is a dramatic infusion of money from so-called super PACs. Now we are starting to learn the identity of those who were behind it. Just yesterday there were disclosures about some of the contributors. Many of the names are familiar--the same very wealthy people who have, time and again, been engaged in our political process. The new approach, of course, is that there is no limitation in what they can spend. In addition, there is little disclosure on a timely basis. There are a lot of reasons for that. One of them is the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United. It may be as flawed a decision as that Court has ever made: to equate corporations and special interest groups with average Americans when it comes to our political process and say speech is money, money is speech, and say, basically, there are no rules or limits in terms of what a special interest group or a corporation can spend in our political process. I cannot think of a more corrupting influence. We know politics and campaigns have become more expensive in this country every year. Those of us who are engaged in this business have, over our political lifetimes, seen a dramatic evolution in terms of how money is raised and spent. I can recall, in my first race in 1982 for the U.S. House of Representatives, raising and spending what was then almost a record amount in a House race against an incumbent Congressman of $800,000.…”