Chuck Todd Quotes

My sense was that most of the elected officials in Washington - in their heart of hearts - really believe that the system can't be too bad because it produced them.

I ran for Congress because I want to help change the way we do business in Washington, D.C.

People who think the might in Washington can be persuaded, or corrupted if you will, by anything less than voters just doesn’t understand what its about and never will. They don’t know what Washington juice is made of.

The special interests are protected in Washington and the public interest is submerged.

In my experience, only third-rate intelligence is sent to Legislatures to make laws, because the first-rate article will not leave important private interests go unwatched to go and serve the public for a beggarly four or five dollars a day, and a miserably trivial distinction

By ending congressional taxpayer-funded pensions, we will take one more step toward draining the swamp in Washington.

Hoosiers sent me to Washington to help President Trump drain the swamp, and it starts with cutting out generous taxpayer-funded perks that keep career politicians in D.C.

Too many in Washington display a ruling class mentality, and congressional term limits would go a long way towards restoring the citizen-legislator ethos of the Founding Fathers.

Candidate Obama was either exceptionally naive or willfully disingenuous when he vowed to change the way Washington works. The very promise of Hope and Change was rooted in uprooting the Washington modus operandi. But instead of rejecting it, he embraced it all - the secrecy, the closed doors, the political favors, the near-criminal negligence.

Earmarks have become a symbol of a Congress that has broken faith with the people. This earmark ban shows the American people we are listening and we are dead serious about ending business as usual in Washington.

Our goal is to displace the entrenched powers in Washington, restore the rightful balance between the state and federal government.

Too many people in Washington care about power institutions, not caring about changing the lives of everyday Americans.

The message is pretty clear: Americans are sick and tired of the doubletalk coming out of Washington, of us going home and saying we're conservative and then coming up here and voting for 10,000 earmarks. We can't fool America anymore; the media is too good. They're reporting what we're really doing.

It's the No.1 issue with people I talk to, whether Republican, Democrat or independent. They want to see the way business is done in Washington change.

The political system is broke. It doesn't matter who the leader is if you are frozen in time and your hands are tied. Social media is so strong that minority groups get a huge say.

Like you, I'm fed up with business as usual in Washington. Send me to Congress, and I won't tweak our broken system. I'll shut it down.

Politics is a game and a profession. It doesn't really serve the people the politicians are supposed to serve.

I know the activists I deal with, we sort of try and check each other to make sure that we haven't gone native, that you come to Washington thinking it's a cesspool, you don't want to end up thinking it's really a hot tub and getting used to it. So that's something one has to keep an eye on all the time.

In every jurisdictional area that I can get my fingers on, I want to move us away from the Washington insider economy.

The trouble with conservatives is that too many of them come to Washington thinking they are going to drain the swamp, only to discover that Washington is a hot tub.

Sadly we have government of the lobbyists, by the lobbyists, and for the lobbyists. That is no way to run the Senate.

I noticed that the highly organized lobbies in Washington were producing results regardless of the justice or injustice of their demand.

I ran for Congress in 2012 because I had had enough. Enough of career politicians, enough of political gamesmanship, and enough of the lack of leadership in Washington.

I'm running for Senate to create real change in Washington, which starts with getting big money out of politics and overturning Citizens United.

I'm focused on bringing real change to Washington because the career politicians have screwed things up so badly.