Matt Rosendale Quotes

Everyone wants to demagogue everyone else. That may be good politics, but it's awful policy.

It’s popular in Congress to vote for simplistic solutions to complex problems.

Americans have been hurting, but when we demanded solutions, too often Washington responded with the same stale mindset that led to failed policies like Obamacare. It's a mindset that gave us political talking points, not serious solutions.

It is always a disappointment to turn from forthright consideration of some subject - whether from the Left or the Right, a poet or a plumber - to the Beltway version, in which the only aspects of the issue that matter are the effects it will have on the fortunes of the two parties and the various men in power.

The wrong Democratic reaction to a stupid Republican utterance is to play hurt.

One of the great cliches of campaign journalism is the notion that American elections have long since ceased to be about issues and ideas.

Democrats always like to brag that their guys are smarter than the opponents and Republicans always like to brag that their guys are more moral than the opponents. But if you're looking for morals in politics you're looking for bananas in the cheese department.

Politicians are ambitious not to make important decisions but to say important things.

It is in the nature of the Congressional animal to be overly concerned with the backwaters of public policy and too little disposed to make hard decisions on mainstream national issues.

You can’t start a conversation about public policy by saying it is complex.

We are becoming too much of a gaff-centric political culture.

Republicans want to use Obamacare in the 2014 elections against Democrats who voted for it. They want to see it fail, even at the expense of people's health.

Generally, Sunday talk shows talk about policy, and I don't address policy.

Jon Tester's priorities are with the liberal, extreme minority of Democrats in the Senate unwilling to compromise. He does not have Montana's best interests in mind. He has failed to represent Montanans.

Individuals do matter and personalities matter in politics. But if issues are sidestepped due to personalities, then that is very dangerous.

America deserves a real discussion about real policy.

Overall, Congress is dysfunctional, partisan, and polarized, and it isn’t getting anything done. We need commissions to break out of divisive partisanship.

Newt Gingrich developed a whole vocabulary of polarization in order to get Republican candidates elected.

We can’t just run the government on political rhetoric and ideology.

The Republican National Convention was a rage-athon featuring a parade of hemorrhoidal has-beens.

We’ve got the liberal bastards on the run, and we’re going to keep them on the run.

Trump has raised the very issues I raised in the early '90s.

I am aware that people at large are constantly angry with the Congress because they feel we are shouting. We are making noise, but there is a very serious reason for it. Parliamentary rules are not being followed.

I, along with many of my Republican colleagues, believe there is so much more we can do for those who are trapped in our social safety net programs. But we are limited by the level of discourse with which of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are willing to engage.

When I hear things like 'unpatriotic,' I just chalk it up to a lot of political rhetoric.