Political Quotes

“I was saddened to learn last week of the passing of a trailblazing former member of our Senate family. Senator Jean Carnahan was the first woman ever to represent Missouri in the U.S. Senate. She was appointed to the Senate in December 2000, after her husband, then-Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan, lost his life in an airplane crash in the closing weeks of his Senate campaign. The Carnahans' eldest son Randy and Chris Sifford, a longtime political aide to the Governor, also perished in the plane crash. It was too late to remove Governor Carnahan's name from the ballot so 1 week before the election, Missouri's acting Governor announced that he would appoint Jean Carnahan to serve in her late husband's place should the people of Missouri elect Governor Carnahan posthumously. In her first remarks in the Senate, Senator Carnahan told her new colleagues, ``I know I did not come to the U.S. Senate in the same way you did. I did not have a long-term, personal commitment to a campaign. My name has never been on a ballot. On election night there was no victory celebration. You are here because of your win; I am here because of my loss. But we are all here to do the work of this great nation.'' The first Senator to greet her after she took her oath of office was someone who also knew the searing pain of losing a spouse and child. As Senator Carnahan later recalled, then-Senator Joe Biden assured Missouri's new Senator that she could endure her crushing loss.…”