Political Quotes

“I wish to add a word to honor my good friend Senator Mark Begich. I think there is a special connection with those of us who were elected on the same day. We share something else in common, which is on that election day in November 2008 neither one of us knew if we had won. We both had to wait some length of time--in my case 2 days and in Senator Begich's case a couple of weeks--but it kind of makes us ponder the future: Are you going to serve or are you not going to serve and how will you utilize that opportunity. There is another connection that comes from being western Senators. When we talk about salmon--and Mark Begich mentioned a while ago ``Frankenfish.'' Well, we are very concerned. We have a collective concern about the health of our salmon runs. It is not just a fishing economy, although that is very much a part of the economy of our States, it is about the soul of our States, the traditions of our State, the natural resources of our States. When we talk about timber, we have a connection. Sitka was mentioned. Sitka spruce is a common tree in our State of Oregon. When we get concerned about the rescues off the Oregon coast because the water is so cold one can't be in it for very long without dying-- which makes it much more important to have advanced helicopters, and just last night we were able to keep a key helicopter on the coast due to Senator Mark Begich's considerable involvement and advocacy. Thank you so much for doing that.…”