Edward Winslow Martin Quotes

Money speaks louder than words in Washington.

Farmers who are legislators are the easiest to buy and seduce.

… lobbyist-larded Washington

We live in a country where Wall Street owns Washington.

Washington is dominated by big money.

The appalling reality in American politics today is that, when ideology and money mix, truth is a mere inconvenience.

I have the most reliable friend you can have in American politics, and that is ready money.

Now, the typical way you make good things happen in Washington is you find a bunch of wealthy companies who agree with you.

There are a lot of grotesqueries in politics, not the least of which is the fund-raising side.

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

Obviously no one wants to give members of Congress a lot of money, because they barely do anything, and many of them are terrible, but a Congress that is made up of rich-but-not-super-rich people is going to be more corruptible than a Congress of really rich people.

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

One usually obtains [diplomatic] influence through the press, and that costs money ... or through the purchase of prominent ... parliamentarians, for which one also needs a great deal of cash.

Washington can be a very lonely place for Congressman and Senators. Many acquaintances almost all of whom want something and very few friends.

There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money, and I can't remember what the second one is.

Washington is rigged to favor people who have an army of lobbyists.

At home when people go to lawmakers and induce them with trips and gifts and so on to pass legislation, it's called corruption. But in the U.S. it's actually a profession called lobbying!

The only people whose views count in the legislation that passes are those with big money. It doesn’t matter what the great majority of Americans want. Our Congress is bought.

The structure of private campaign finance has essentially pre-corrupted our politicians, so that they can't even recognize explicit bribery because it feels the same as what they do every day.

Until we make campaigns affordable, then we're going to have too many members of Congress out rattling the cup with special interest groups.

Let's face it, politics in this country is coin-operated. Does that really equate to a real democracy? It's very difficult to say.

Politics runs on power and money and on ignorance.

If you put your politicians up for sale, as the US does (alone in this among industrialized democracies), then someone will buy them--and it won’t be you; you can’t afford them.

I'm thinking of when the Qatari representative was given five minutes with Bill Clinton for a million dollar cheque.

When these political action committees give money, they expect something in return other than good government.