Political Quotes

“I have to applaud the opponents of campaign finance reform. They have done a great job. They set out to confuse and distract from the real issue of campaign reform, and they have succeeded. They have diverted attention from the fact that raising money becomes one of the essential items and activities of those of us who serve in Congress just to remain competitive. They have done this by focusing on extraneous matters like who made phone calls, where did they make them from? We have not focused, as we should, on the continued increased cost of the media in campaigns. Consultants have become more controlling. Self-financing has become the norm. Opponents, Mr. President, of real campaign finance reform are focused on anything to divert attention from the fact that campaigns are very expensive and too long. The Governmental Affairs Committee hearing has clearly shown, at least in this Senator's opinion, that both parties need more constraints, more controls, and more attention. We must bring attention back to what the real issues are in campaign finance--that is, the fact that Senators and Representatives spend large amounts of their time and their efforts simply raising money in order to pay for escalating media costs. As I have said, we have the never-ending, it seems, self-financing of candidates.”