Claire McCaskill Quotes

I'm definitely a centrist and feel like both parties can be absurd.

I'm not someone who thinks Republicans are always wrong and Democrats are always right.

I say Republicans aren't right all the time. Democrats aren't wrong all the time - now, maybe most of the time, but not all the time.

It is amazing that the wisdom of the chattering class to the Republicans is always, always, always 'Surrender your principles and agree with the Democrats.' That's been true for my entire lifetime.

When most presidents get in, they move to the center because they realize that this is a centrist country - even Reagan.

I'm a Democrat, but I'm really bipartisan - some people might say nonpartisan.

The Republican and Democratic parties have accomplished an amazing feat with the red state/blue state paradigm. They've convinced everyone that regardless of how bad they are, the other guy is worse.

I think the danger with the liberal Left is seeing the Republican Party as a monolith.

There were more moderate Republicans in those days than there are today.

You do not compromise with the right wing of the Republican party.

There are some in Congress who would rather see their opponents lose than see their country win. That has got to stop…. They must find a way to put country ahead of party.

My Republican compatriots do not feel that people ought to work with Democrats across the aisle—Compromise is a bad word.

… triangulation is the idea that you demonstrate to some set of swing voters that you are politically palatable by poking the extremes of both parties in the eye.

This is the classic fight between the moderate Republicans who try to get to the middle by compromise and the conservative Republicans who try to create a new middle by driving the left away.

Though she is a proud native of one of the most famously liberal cities in the country, Feinstein has earned a reputation over the years in the Senate as someone eager to work across the aisle with Republicans.

I don't think that the Left has a monopoly on bad ideas. I don't think the Right has a monopoly on good ideas.

I am a proud moderate republican. But I like democrats as well.

One of the problems the Republican Party has had is that we're too fast to compromise. You can compromise on the little stuff, but you can't compromise on your core principles.

At the end of the day, Democrats go out and appeal to 30 percent of the far left; Republicans go out and appeal to 30 percent of the far right. Hey, there's a big middle ground here that's not represented. I think that, Bill Weld and myself, I think the Libertarian Party really occupies that ground.

I think liberals would love to see the conservative party be more moderate, more middle of the road. I mean, my gosh, what do you call John McCain? Some would argue, what do you call Mitt Romney?

There was the slow discovery for me in the early '80s that Republicans are people too... That Republicans are perfectly reasonable people... and that Republicans can be right about something.

Not every Democratic idea is a good one; not every Republican idea is a bad one.

There are things that some Democrats say I agree with and some things that I disagree with. And it's the same with the Republicans.

The Democratic Party went far to the left, I think, and left some of us stranded on the beach, so we went to the Republican Party.

A government full of Democrats would rather have you be a Republican, and a government full of Republicans would rather have you be a Democrat, than have you oppose both.