Political Horse Trading Quotes

Lyndon Johnson was perhaps the greatest political arm twister in the country’s history.

Obamacare is the wildly complex Rube Goldberg contraption it is because getting the legislation through Congress required so many political tradeoffs and so many unavoidable deals with so many vested interests. But that's no excuse.

Our nation was founded on the pork barrel, and it has become great by political log-rolling.

The inside operation of Congress - the deals, the compromises, the selling out, the co-opting, the unprincipled manipulating, the self-serving career-building - is a story of such monumental decadence that I believe if people find out about it they will demand an end to it.

Ah, political physics. Someone wins an election and, poof, they are a candidate for vice president. Ridiculous.

It is in the committee that the dirty work is done ... away from the many-eyed scrutiny of the rest of Congress and the public ... special interest legislation usually originates in the committee room.

I prefer a simple bill which deals with a single basic issue. When you add new provisions to a bill you develop a larger coalition of opposition. Each new provision brings in more opponents who combine with the existing opponents until you no longer can pass the law.

There is this concept of politics as a dirty game.