Robert M. Gates Quotes

We need less bipartisanship in Congress.

You used to get legislation done by getting the moderates to agree. But we have no moderates now so it doesn’t get done

The middle in Congress is gone now. That is where we got most things done.

In Congressional legislating, most of the game is played between the 30-yard lines. The great forces of inertia and compromise … in the past have frequently pushed liberal and conservative players toward the middle of the field.

The polarization of American politics is the proximate cause of the ongoing budget deficit…. Lately, the ideological center in Congress has thinned, and the distance between the parties has widened. Compromise has come to be seen as surrender—and the U. S. Government has all but come to a halt.

I will not be making appointments to a committee that is not bipartisan.

There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.

The people we elect aren't bipartisan. The American public is bipartisan.

While I am grateful for the friendships and relationships that I have with my Republican colleagues, it would be naive to pretend that those friendships will change the way that major policies are enacted in Arizona.

So the - the part of the problem is not just the rhetoric. It's the fact that we - we're so polarized in what we've done to each other as parties over the last thirty years in redistricting that it's very, very hard to overcome your own constituencies and move to the middle.

You need the House, you need the Senate and you need the administration. And absent one of them, you're not going to get a heck of a lot done.

I don't look forward to a time when every politician, every legislator goes to Washington absolutely committed to an extreme point of view. Elected representatives are sent to Washington to compromise, not to never compromise.

Partisan rancour and party politics and ideology have got in the way of compromise - and compromise is the only thing that has ever made politics successful.

I think that what is truly unfortunate is when an entire party makes a decision that they're going to block every single thing that a president wants to accomplish. It's very - it's very hard to get anything done in those circumstances.

Like most Americans, I feel disgusted when we see people make decisions based on party politics rather than a solution that is best for the country.

We tend to talk, Democrats, as a party, in legislative terms.

I wouldn’t be too serious about bipartisanship. It’s a great myth that ought to be fostered. And don’t bring too damn much scholarship to bear on it. You’ll prove it out of existence if you’re not careful.

Have we come to the point where the Democratic Party needs a Republican President?

You can't write laws in America if you don't compromise.

People want divided government.

Campaigns are partisan. Governing should not be partisan.

The Senate is indeed a deliberative body, and that quality serves the nation well. A slow-moving government helps us maintain a stable government. But slow moving is not the same as immobile.

Governing in a polarized society means, making bipartisan deals.

There are but two divisions of party in the United States; and he is a very weak or very presumptuously vain man who can think of organizing a third party that shall rule them both.

In America you've got a one party state except that you've got two of them.