Zitat des Tages von Claire McCaskill:
I was in the room with, you know, more than a dozen Republicans trying to negotiate the stimulus. Most of them decided the politics of the situation meant they should walk away, even if it wasn't responsible in terms of what our country needed right then.
Only in Washington would the Republican operatives get the entire press corps ginned up over the notion that I'm going to be home campaigning instead of going to a bunch of worthless parties at a convention that's only being held to do something we all know is going to happen anyway.
I am a small-town girl.
The NRA grades senators and representatives based on their votes on gun issues - and even on issues that have little-to-nothing to do with guns.
I don't know how anyone can keep a straight face and say they are for deficit reduction while they insist on a permanent tax cut for the wealthiest Americans, completely unpaid for.
Somehow in the public sector, if you start in the mailroom and spend your life getting promoted, it's unseemly.
I think there are certain folks in Missouri that don't trust government. And they haven't trusted government for a long time.
No commander in chief would ever say, 'I'm not going to listen to the guys on the ground.'
We need candidate schools to recruit more young African-Americans to run for office and more diverse law enforcement communities.
We work for the public, and I believe that if a senator wants to block a piece of legislation or a nominee, they owe the public an explanation.
When the Tea Party comes to town, compromise goes out the door.
There's nothing that irritates Americans more than the fact that some members of Congress think they are entitled to their own set of rules. And it's true - too many people in Washington live in an alternate reality.
I think I'm the last Democrat left in the Senate after Russ Feingold was defeated that won't take earmarks.
Do I want Social Security to be there for my kids and my grandkids? Absolutely. Will I fight like a tiger to make sure that we protect Social Security? I absolutely will.
I've got a really hard election. If you had a really hard election and it was after Labor Day would you go to North Carolina to a bunch of parties and glad-handing or would you stay home and work as hard as you know how to convince Missourians they should rehire you?
I'm a moderate. I hang out in the middle. I vote against my party with some regularity and try to compromise. It doesn't appear right now that the Republican Party is welcoming moderates any more.
If you look through history, all of the great work we've done in Congress has been around a table of compromise, when it comes to the most difficult problems.
We shouldn't deny the right of the minority to filibuster, but we need to do a much better job of making them own it. That way, the American people could figure out who is being obstructionist and who is willing to compromise.
I think, first of all, you know, Washington has a bad habit of a very short attention span.
My first obligation is my job. It's very hard to really get into campaign mode when you've got to focus on doing the work.
I'm the only United States Senator in the country that I'm aware of that's had the far left up on TV and the far right up on TV against me at the same time.
I started in the mailroom, literally, as an intern... in 1974. The legislator I was working for at the time said, 'I want you to get your law degree and come back here and get elected and be the first woman governor.' I kind of took that guy seriously - I thought that sounded like a pretty good idea.
What we have done with No Child Left Behind is squeeze the creativity out of the classroom because teachers have begun to just teaching to the test.
I voted against my party with some frequency, because of my independence. I've just got to remind Missourians that I am independent and that I try to call them like I see them, and sometimes my party is wrong on some things.
When you work in the United States Senate, and you are around people of all different ideas and beliefs, you realize that what our Founding Fathers did that was so genius, is that they made the Senate the place where compromises are supposed to happen because of the makeup of the Senate.
The political system loves the extremes, it doesn't so much show a lot love for the moderates.
You never know what'll happen in politics.
Corporate governance is a huge issue too. We don't have women on these corporate boards. More than half of the students in law school are women, more than half of the women, I think, in medical school now are women.
The Missourians I hear from just don't buy the idea that the only way to tackle the national debt is to drastically alter Medicare and Social Security.
When I was a prosecutor in Kansas City, my job was to fight for justice and safety for all citizens in my community. Equal access to justice under the law is an American value embedded in the fabric of our legal and political system - the idea that anybody, powerful or not, can have their day in court.
Many civil rights came about, not when they were passed into law, but because the federal government did what it should and saw them enforced.
Many countries struggle and never get to the point where people have faith that laws are executed fairly.
You know I think the president has to really focus on getting elected to a second term in 2012. And I need to focus on making sure I'm accountable to the people of Missouri.
Obviously, I have been a pro-choice candidate for my entire political career, and obviously there is controversy always surrounding this issue.
Being a new mother was a joyful and sometimes overwhelming experience - and as the first Missouri female state legislator to have a baby while in office, having heath care for myself and my son gave me some needed peace of mind.
We still have not been able to move into those positions in our country that are really directing traffic among that 1 percent, and that's where women have to break through.