Interest Groups Quotes - Page 2

• I identify myself as an actor, because I feel like you don't go to the doctress, you go to the doctor; it doesn't matter what the gender is. I think actresses worry about eyelashes and cellulite, and women who are actors worry about the characters we are playing. A separate category is another way of making us a special-interest group.

  Alfre Woodard

  Character, Thinking, Doctors

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• My good friend Walter Mondale is a good lapdog. He'll give them [special interest groups] everything they want. He'll lick every hand.

  Ernest Hollings

  Good Friend, Hands, Giving

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• American cities are kind of difficult contexts to work in. They are politically complex. There are a lot of different interest groups. It takes immense political skill to get anything done at all.

  William J. Mitchell

  Skills, Cities, Political

  Source: bigthink.com

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• People ask, quite legitimately, why [Betsy] DeVos and why not a lot of the others? But it's because it has to do with the special interest groups that run a lot of Washington.

  David Brooks

  Running, People, Special

  Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

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• You have to buy off interest groups, compromise your ideals, and settle for half loaves...

  Kevin Drum

  Groups, Half, Compromise

  "Here’s Why I Never Warmed Up to Bernie Sanders" by Kevin Drum, www.motherjones.com. April 29, 2016.

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• Building on the public's unwillingness to act on principle in support of market solutions to apparent problems, whether real or imagined, these interest groups secure arbitrary restrictions on voluntary exchanges and, in the process, secure rents for their members while reducing both the liberties and economic well being of other members of the economic nexus, both domestically and internationally.

  James M. Buchanan

  Philosophy, Real, Political

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• Bulgaria has been deindustrialized by interest groups who extracted state assets like oil states extract the oil in their ground.

  Ivan Krastev

  Oil, Groups, Assets

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• Bowing to well-meaning, special-interest groups is an immoral way to run a company, given all the people it would hurt. We simply cannot allow arbitrary rules to be forced on us by organizations that lack business expertise.

  T. J. Rodgers

  Running, Hurt, Organization

  "Cypress CEO Responds to Nun's Urging a 'Politically Correct' Board Make-up" by T. J. Rodgers, www.cypress.com. May 24, 2012.

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• Some liberal interest groups have come out in full force and have attempted to paint Judge [Samuel] Alito to be an extremist and to be an activist. They've criticized a nominee who has, from what I see described by these lawyers and fellow judges, a reputation of being a restrained jurist committed to the rule of law and the Constitution.

  Chuck Grassley

  Law, Judging, Groups

  U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Judge Samuel Alito's Nomination to the Supreme Court, www.washingtonpost.com. January 9, 2006.

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• The Democratic Party is a coalition. Its strength and its weakness is, it's a coalition of interest groups, caucuses. It's a lot less homogeneous than the Republican Party, where people tend to believe the same things and oftentimes look alike.

  Mark Shields

  Party, Believe, People

  "Shields and Brooks: Will Voters Think Democrats Have Gone Too Liberal?". PBS Newshour, www.pbs.org. July 22, 2010.

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• Democratic capitalism: A cooperative enterprise to earn enough money to buy enough Congressional influence to gain control over the government's guns so as to get even more money for your special-interest group.Social democratic capitalism: A cooperative enterprise to promise sufficient government benefits to enough voters to gain control over the government's guns so as to keep any other special-interest group from getting as much power as yours.

  Gary North

  Gun, Government, Promise

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• If every negotiation is conducted in public, then the minute one person says, well, what if we try this, next thing you know, the interest groups have piled all in, and the political opponents have shot it to pieces.

  Jonathan Rauch

  Political, What If, Trying

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• I'm not sure I want to sound like a candidate. I just want to sound like an American who's trying to make this country a heck of a lot stronger. Not a politician typical, but somebody that's going to go and do the job, not pay attention to all the special interest groups, change the status quo, shift power out of Washington and get America on the track again with strengthening our military as well.

  John Kasich

  Change, Strength, Country

  "Fox News Sunday" with Chris Wallace, www.foxnews.com. May 3, 2015.

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• Heads of state are actually prisoners of special interest groups.

  Deepak Chopra

  Special, Groups, States

  "The Tavis Smiley Show", www.pbs.org. May 27, 2015.

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• If zero percent of the elites support something, very low chance it's going to pass, if 100% support something, very high chance it's going to pass. Same thing for organized interest groups. But for the average voter, it's a flat line. Which says it doesn't matter whether zero percent of the public believes something or 100% of the average voters believe something - it doesn't affect the probability that that thing will be enacted.

  Lawrence Lessig

  Zero, Believe, Average

  "'Your Representative Doesn't Give a Shit About You': Larry Lessig's Plan to Fix Democracy". Interview with Hamilton Nolan, gawker.com. October 13, 2015.

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• Was it a good idea to spend taxpayer dollars on electric cars in Finland, or on windmills in China? Was it a good idea to borrow all this money from countries like China and spend it on all these various different interest groups?

  Paul Ryan

  Country, Ideas, Car

  Vice presidential debate questions, www.politico.com. October 11, 2012.

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• Career politicians do not have the courage to prioritize spending and say no to demanding special interest groups who do not reflect the best interests of the country.

  Tom Coburn

  Country, Careers, Political

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• It used to be that the working class, broadly speaking - Americans who worked with their hands, who worked in factories, who were not in management - were an interest group, a political interest group. And their main spokespersons were the Democrats. Their platform was the Democratic Party. And that began to change after the 1960s. Not for black or other working class Americans, but for white working class.

  George Packer

  Party, Hands, Class

  Source: www.npr.org

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• People think that politics just somehow magically organizes itself. It doesn't work that way. You need to assemble these huge coalitions of 535 politicians on Capitol Hill, and tens of thousands of interest groups, and tens of millions of voters, and assemble all those in government to get stuff done.

  Jonathan Rauch

  Thinking, Government, People

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• The Open Market Committee, as presently established, is plainly not in the public interest. This committee must be operated by purely public servants, representatives of the people as a whole and not any single interest group. The Open Market Committee should be abolished, and its powers transferred to the Federal Reserve Board - the present public members of the committee, with reasonably short terms of office.

  Wright Patman

  Wisdom, Office, People

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• Storytelling may be what most distinguishes social movements from interest groups.

  Marshall Ganz

  Groups, Stories, Movement

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• Politicians will pander to special-interest groups eager to gain at the public expense.

  Donald J. Boudreaux

  Political, Special, Groups

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• When are we left-wingers going to learn that we are losing the cultural and political battle with conservatives because we are fractured into narcissistic special-interest groups? Why should an antiwar protestor be so concerned about her dietary identity? The political opinions of vegetarians and meat-eaters are, after all, equally important. And what does it tell us about vegetarians that it would never occur to meat-eaters to carry a sign that reads "Pacifist Pork Chop Lover for Peace" or "Backyard Rib Barbecuer for International Nuclear Disarmament"?

  Sherman Alexie

  Political Opinions, Nuclear Disarmament, Unity

  "Lefties Need to Love, Love, Love the White Working Class". Article by Sherman Alexie, www.thestranger.com. April 17, 2003.

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• That is why everyone in politics, and we do it, must make sure that they do not depend on one single interest group. A good compromise is one where everybody makes a contribution.

  Angela Merkel

  Groups, Compromise, Interest

  Interview with Bertrand Benoit and Andrew Gowers, www.ft.com. July 20, 2005.

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• Im sorry Im not gay or Jewish, so I dont have a special interest group of journalists that support me.

  Vincent Gallo

  Im Sorry, Gay, Support

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