Jim Cooper Quotes

Reaching consensus has gotten harder. Today, a minority if the minority plays hostage politics. It’s all or nothing politics at its worst.

Texans don't want to sit back and watch Austin turn into Washington, D.C. State leaders in power keep forcing people to opposite corners to prepare for a fight instead of coming together to get things done.

Aren't we at the point where the closer we get to chaos, the more concern that there should be about coming to the table and compromising with Democrats? This is not leadership. This is almost like dictatorship.

It's a sad commentary on where politics is today. If someone disagrees with you, you're either Attila the Hun or a leftist liberal.

The Right-wingers everywhere take themselves too seriously, whether in the U.S. or the U.K. And, by the way, so does the Left. The Left can take itself a little too seriously as well.

I mean, the country is deeply divided. There is 35 percent of the people who are Tea Partiers or more in some of those states. So it's probably going to be a difficult year, but there's nothing that I think anyone can do about it.

I mean, look, we're living in a country where you can't have a non-denominational response. If you're slightly critical of either party, all of the partisans jump on you like you're a lunatic.

Negative politics have always been around.

I think the media loves taking the most absurd clips for a sport that has become congressional politics.

The two parties are still more polarized than ever before and the rise of partisan media is an important reason for it.

While Obama, the olive-branch poseur, has called for a restoration of 'civility' in Washington and liberal elites whine and whinny about the need for 'no labels,' class-warfare demagoguery has metastasized unchecked.

Incivility is not the disease. It is the symptom. Partisanship is the disease…. When your highest duty is to your party, the public interest becomes subservient.

Liberals and the Democratic Party are demonic.

We need less bipartisanship in Congress.

You're either on the Republican team or the Democratic team, and all that matters is that your team wins. Judging by history, regardless of which team wins, the people always lose.

Unfortunately, our country has become so politically polarized that one side routinely attempts to destroy and discredit the other.

A government full of Democrats would rather have you be a Republican, and a government full of Republicans would rather have you be a Democrat, than have you oppose both.

For the past eight years, the right has been better at working the refs. Now the left is learning how to play the game.

At its worst, Washington is a place where name-calling partisan politics too often trumps policy.

Democrats believe they can win at the ballot box by obstructing, and they would rather win the next election than move America forward.

It's a bit unfair to accuse Obama of dividing the nation when the facts show that it already is.

It's a sad indication of where Washington has come, where policy differences almost necessarily become questions of integrity. I came to Washington in the late '70s, and people had the ability in the past to have intense policy differences but didn't feel the need to question the other person's character.

When the Tea Party comes to town, compromise goes out the door.

We must stop the Tea Party before the United States Senate falls into the hands of extremists and ideologues who leave no room for reason or compromise, who don't recognize common ground even when they're standing on it.

I think it has done us more harm believing in the huge differences between left and right, Democrat and Republican.