Political Quotes

“Madam President, I rise to urge the Senate to confirm the nomination of Sylvia Mathews Burwell to be Director of the Office of Management and Budget. I do so with great pride because Sylvia Burwell is from my home State of West Virginia. I have been dear friends with her family for a long time. Her parents have been community leaders in Hinton, WV, for over half a century. Her father Dr. William Mathews is a longtime optometrist, and her mother the Honorable Cleo Mathews previously served as the mayor of Hinton, as well as in a number of other public service positions. I worked with Sylvia for many years as mayor when I was Governor of the State--she was quite competent--including 8 years on the State Board of Education when she served as president of the board of education. If you want to know Sylvia, you should look at her small hometown of Hinton, WV, and the surrounding Summers County that she grew up in because that is her grounding. It is pure Americana, a one-time railroad boom town, woven into the mountains of Appalachia. The downtown historic district, 200 buildings, including churches, storefronts, and private residences, is an architectural gem of American Gothic, Classical, Victorian and Greek Revival styles. It is a movie just waiting to happen. Hinton is the ideal example of smalltown West Virginia and probably smalltown America. It only has 2,600 residents. That is a pretty large town for West Virginia and probably North Dakota.…”