Nancy Gibbs Quotes

It's normal for people, especially politicians, to expect rewards in return for favors.

As a lobbyist, I thought it only natural and right that my clients should reward those members who saved them such substantial sums with generous contributions. This quid pro quo became one of hallmarks of our lobbying efforts.

Patronage is almost a wicked word. By itself it could well-nigh defeat democracy.

Every single administration in American political history has put cronies and pals and donors into political positions. But normally those people become the ambassador to Liechtenstein or the deputy undersecretary of commerce.

I have never pressurized a producer to do me any favor.

I would argue that one of the issues which the public should be much more emphatic about with all politicians... is patronage, appointing people to high positions because they supported your campaign or helped you raise money.

The greatest beggar and the most troublesome of all the office seekers during my Administration was General Harrison.

Politics is the art of putting people under obligation to you.

no political influence could save a man who deserved punishment and none could win unworthy promotion.

Oh, that all the things my father had told me about how disgusting Washington is are true. And again it's the system - there are lots of nice, well-meaning people there. But it's a sleazy place. And politics is all about doing favors.

You are beginning to see that any man to whom you can do favor is your friend, and that you can do a favor to almost anyone.

The biggest problem that we have is that California is being run now by special interests. All of the politicians are not anymore making the moves for the people, but for special interests and we have to stop that.

What we have now is a situation where politicians get a whole bunch of money from mainly business interests. Then once they hold that office, they spend all their time in office paying back over and over again those campaign contributions through various favors and contracts and that sort of thing.

People like Elizabeth Dole have given too much power to the special interests.

That is the Roman way: to give favors to the favorites.

An honest politician has no goodies to toss around. This limits his effectiveness profoundly, because political power in India is dispersed throughout a multi-tiered federal structure; a local official who has not been paid off can sometimes stop a billion-dollar project.

All the anxious politicians of his party have been looking upon him as certainty, at no distant day, to be the President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, post offices land offices, marshalships, and cabinet appointments, chargeships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands.

People in Washington do things that they shouldn’t do because they owe somebody.

It’s in their interest to keep a Republican majority …. It’s sort of ‘Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.”

Whose bread I eat, his song I sing.

I am not in Washington as a statesman. I am there as a very well paid messenger boy doing your errands. My chief occupation is going around with a forked stick picking up little fragments of patronage for my constituents.

When you've got a guy who's in position to influence who gets what, the potential is always there for corruption.

Nine tenths of the callers at the White House want something they ought not to have.

Government runs by clout. That's how it runs, by clout.

Congressmen are not bribed anymore. They simply have a lot of friends who are willing to help them out whenever they find it necessary.