Bob Dole Quotes

Public [campaign] financing and free television time are the things that will diminish the high influence that money has on politics.

In Canada we have limits on campaign spending and public funding of campaigns. This makes it easier for people [candidates] who don't have access to huge amounts of money.

Spending for congressional campaigns is getting to be like the arms race.

In constant pursuit of money to finance campaigns, the political system is simply unable to function. Its deliberative powers are paralyzed.

I do not believe wealthy candidates should spend vast resources in their own campaigns.

Well I think money has been going into political campaigns for a very long time.

It is campaign money that calls the tune, a fact recognized by every politician within a few minutes after getting into politics.

In many cases they [members of congress] go outside their district [to raise money.] They in effect trade policy positions for money. Then they go back to their districts and use the money to run campaigns on a nonpolicy basis.

In running for Congress, you have to raise over $2 million. You are going to end up shaking hands with people with whom you would rather not shake hands. 95 percent of all the candidates with the most money, win.

Most important of all the structural reforms, we need to follow through on the recent Congressional effort to discipline the use of money in politics, by setting reasonable limits on campaign spending, limiting and publicizing individual and organizational gifts and channeling much more of the money (including … all general election spending) through the respective party committees rather than through individual candidates’ treasuries.

There is probably no such thing as a level playing field in political campaigns.

We have to talk about the way we finance campaigns.

The first thing I learned is that campaigns are about money. I had this romantic idea that campaigns were about law and debates and so forth, which is just not true. It's about money.

I would do away with super PACs. I think it's a cancer.

A million dollars in the presidential election is a spit in the ocean. It's not a lot of money.

The democratic process is supposed to be one person one vote, but it turns out that money is talking louder than the votes.

A political race today, even a primary, is $150 million. The whole political system has become obscene in terms of the absurd amount of money that is required to compete. Just put it on ESPN and call it a sporting event.

I think we have to look at the whole way campaigns are financed. The No. 1 problem is PAC and special-interest money.

As dismayed as Americans are with the influence of the special interests that finance election campaigns, they've been reluctant to embrace the alternative: taxpayer-financed elections.

Money is speech. It's incongruous to say a multimillionaire can spend as much on his own campaign as he wants, but you can only give $2,300. His free speech rights are different from yours, thus violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. It's absurd.

Democracy, if it meant what our forefathers said, that would be great, but unfortunately it's been corrupted by this funding and funding of campaigns. There's a much better way to do it. There could be a small amount of money given by every taxpayer to be dedicated to candidates.

Money in politics is a huge issue.

Soft money will find its way and seep into the political system and corrode it, unless we plug every hole.

Spending limits not only do not work, they have the perverse effect of making special interests more powerful and more influential.

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.