Conan O'Brien Quotes

I'm asking regular folks to be my super PAC.

We have become part-time Senators and full time fund-raisers. Even the schedule of the Senate itself is now arranged around the need to raise money for the next political campaign, rather than around the need to solve the nation's problems and do the people's business.

Congressman are spending too much time raising money.

It was primary election, but [Donald] Trump hasn't spent a lot of money. Not compared to - I mean, Jeb Bush had a $115 million super PAC, and he has six delegates. It's not a dream, but it's something I do think about.

I think the presidency is a bad way to measure the effective campaign finance, because in the presidency, there is so much publicity, there's so much money floating around.

Donald Trump's campaign has raised about $100,000 in donations during the second quarter. Which raises an important question: Who is giving Donald Trump money? That's like giving your money to a pile of money.

We have to get rid of the constant fundraising that happens inside the Congress. Before, political parties used to raise money; now, individual members are raising money through the DCCC and the RCCC. It is absolutely corrupt.

Call-time has renewed my faith in the need for public financing of elections. 'Call-time' is where I as the candidate, sit in a room with my 'call-time manager,' and a phone. Then I call people and ask them for money. For hours. Apparently, I'm really good at it.

In 1988, as an unknown candidate, totally unknown, I won Iowa, came in second in New Hampshire, won South Dakota. I was ahead in every Super Tuesday state the day after South Dakota. The only problem was I didn't have enough money. I had a million dollars left, and Al Gore had three and Michael Dukakis had three and it was lights out.

A congressman serves a two year term. As soon as he gets elected, he has to start attending fund raisers.

So long as politicians need millions to win a seat in Congress and nearly a billion to contest the White House, they will sanctify the methods needed to raise such sums.

[On campaign fund-raising:] You're just sort of shamelessly begging. That's what federal politics is about.

Until the 1980s, candidates spent a fraction of their time talking to donors; just a few weeks a year, a little more right before an election. True, they'd fund raise from the wealthy interests, as they do now, but it was a minuscule part of their job: policy and constituent services were the heart of the work.

I talked to congressmen who really hate having to go to the many fundraisers, but they see it as a necessary part of their job.

Indiana's ninth congressional district isn't historically known as a fount of congressional contributions. That said, if you look at my fundraising history, we've succeeded.

There's issue of a corrupt campaign finance system, where big money interests and Wall Street are trying to buy elections.Those are the issues that are resonating.

In the United States 95% of the people who win elections have the most money. That's it. So, money is a big part of elections. But that happens all the time.

Let's face it, the subject of campaign finance is not always scintillating. But it's incredibly important.

Marco Rubio's presidential campaign has raised $40 million in the last week. When he heard that, Rubio said, 'Hey, any chance I can drop out of the race and just keep the 40 million?'

Running for office in our country takes a lot of money, and candidates have to go out and raise it. New York is probably the leading site for contributions for fundraising for candidates on both sides of the aisle, and it's also our economic center. And there are a lot of people here who should ask some tough questions before handing over campaign contributions to people who were really playing chicken with our whole economy.

Obama has had more fundraisers than the last six presidents combined. And he's still losing in the money race!

We have two and half million individual campaign contributions, more than any campaign in history.

It's all about raising more money. And they have to keep this alive, so Hillary [Clinton] got cheated.

Mitt Romney had a fundraiser in Israel with a bunch of diamond merchants, we don't know the names of them.

I don't care if the Koch brothers or Soros spend their money to promote one candidate or another. I care about members of Congress spending 30%-70% of their time raising money from .05% of us. Change the way we fund elections and you change the corruption.