Les AuCoin Quotes

It's obscene how money is driving politics.

Washington is dominated by big money.

Money often determines not only who gets elected, but what gets done. Which voices do lawmakers listen to, the banks or home owners, coal companies, or asthma sufferers, the CEOs or the unemployed?

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.

The political battle is between big money combines who spend a thousand pounds or more on every constituency they fight… when they speak democracy, they don't mean government by the people...they mean financial democracy, in which money counts and nothing but money.

Eventually, money wins in politics.

Money distorts the democratic process in a fundamental way.

This system stinks and every senator who participates in it knows it stinks. And the American people are right when they mistrust this system, when what matters most in seeking public office is not integrity, not ability, not judgment, not reason, not responsibility, not experience, not intelligence, but money …. Money dominates the system. Money infuses the system. Money is the system.

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

Anyone who has been around Washington politics long enough can't avoid this truism: Election-year money is like a rushing river that invariably finds cracks in any dam the reformers erect.

I think that's most unfortunate about our Democratic system, that you're confining it to people who are either very wealthy in their own right or have capacity to gain access to large amounts 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.

Washington's a cesspool of money.

Even though Senator Cranston was one of the most liberal members of the Senate, most of the time I was with him he was on the phone asking rich men for money….His ideals were as wonderful as any, but at the end of the day, he was still beholden to money.

America has the best congress money can buy.

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.

It is very important at this juncture to eliminate the influence of big money and special interests in politics.

A $5,000 campaign contribution to a member of Congress will hardly get you a thank you these days.

Large sums of money really unbalance the democratic process.

Special interests and Congress are too closely connected and the ties that bind are the millions spent on campaigns.

Money in politics is like ants in your kitchen. You close all the holes and get them all out or they'll find their way in again.

Money in politics leads to bad things—and I am bipartisan in that view.

Congress is as addicted to tobacco money as a heavy smoker is to the nicotine in his Marlboros.

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.