Richard Mourdock Quotes

There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.

Bipartisanship is nice, but it cannot be a substitute for action, not having it cannot prevent us from going forward.

I am not a centrist.

The problem is that the right doesn't need any ideas to govern, but the left can't govern without ideas.

I'm not sure if President Obama is an ideologue or a pragmatist. I am hoping and praying he's a pragmatist.

So, what I say to people is that politics has got to be about principle and values above all. Of course, there are times when you have to make accommodations.

I wouldn’t be too serious about bipartisanship. It’s a great myth that ought to be fostered. And don’t bring too damn much scholarship to bear on it. You’ll prove it out of existence if you’re not careful.

Campaigns are partisan. Governing should not be partisan.

You do not compromise with the right wing of the Republican party.

Tea party members of Congress do not want to legislate. They want to remonstrate.

You used to get legislation done by getting the moderates to agree. But we have no moderates now so it doesn’t get done

People at the political extremes have an advantage over the rest of us. Only they seem to know exactly who and what is wrong with America and precisely what policies and programs should be adopted to fix it.

Politics or ideology must not get in the way of sound planning..

There's an ideological belief on the left that you should not use nonpartisan tools.

By trying to advance the perfect conservative solution, nobody wins.

Well, I don't know too many governors who are flaming ideologues.

You have a political and media elite who have an idiom by which they describe politics. It's highly, highly polarised. It's right, left, red, blue, up, down, victorious, crushed.

Centrism is bogus.

In a way I'm almost more rueful about the notion of having a non-ideological Labour party than I am about the personality of Tony Blair.

Two truths are all too often overshadowed in today's political discourse: Public service is a most honorable pursuit, and so is bipartisanship.

Above all else stands the burning question of bipartisanship. Whatever else the politicians might say they're about, our news analysts know that this is the true object of the nation's desire, the topic to which those slippery presidential spokesmen need always to be dragged back.

There's something about Barack Obama that induces Americans to imagine what they cannot see. The Right envisions a vile socialist, while many on the Left picture an inspired liberal, politically restrained in his first term but now free to pursue his true beliefs.

You do the policy, I'll do the politics.

I would like Obama to be tougher on going up against the Republicans, I don't think he should try to be so moderate.

Partisan rancour and party politics and ideology have got in the way of compromise - and compromise is the only thing that has ever made politics successful.