Ross Baker Quotations

So long as he is a free man, still a member of the House and participating in the conference, his influence is going to remain considerable.

She's the original stealth candidate. It was a shrewd choice for Bush. If you can't ram somebody through who's got a higher profile, you do an end run around the opposition.

One of the things that members strive to do, and in large measure are successful, is to achieve a situation that voters do in fact look at them as people who do good things for the district.

He has the nimbleness and fancy footwork of a prima ballerina.

He enjoys very strong support there. His problem is with swing voters.

He obviously has to offer some words of reassuring to people on Medicare who've been baffled by the prescription drug program and encourage them to hang in.

His timing, I think, was unfortunate. A junior senator in the minority party doesn't get much of an opportunity to shine.

There is an unspoken but enormously wide gap between the views of Democrats in Washington and Democrats in the country on Iraq.

It created a sense of irresoluteness on the part of the administration.

You can have a scintillating personality, a great resume; unless you're sitting on a very healthy treasury, they are going to look elsewhere. It is of critical importance. You can never do it too early. It marks you as a competitor.

The payoffs are enormous. If you pay a lobbyist a few hundred thousand dollars, or even millions of dollars, it's pocket change compared to what you can make with a casino.

The president may have to do with the State of the Union address something that rarely gets done with State of the Union addresses - and that is to be inspirational.

While the subject matter doesn't have an impact on the daily concerns of people in Ewing Township, chairmanships give you bargaining power with members of other committees. There is a prestige factor involved. You become a part of a select group of House leaders.

Corzine is seen as being as clean as a hound's tooth. It tarnishes him a little bit, but I don't think it's the kind of thing that will be decisive in the campaign.

There's a strange minuet going on. In some ways, even the activists feel they could do a lot worse than Roberts, but they can't say it. They have to put up some kind of fight.

It's helpful for a member to be able to embrace a president. If not, they're very much alone.

It's a very pointed message in a very public forum to someone about to assume the most important seat on the court, ... Whether he heeds it or not, Roberts can't be indifferent that the Senate is upset about the Supreme Court usurping the functions of Congress, second guessing them, and belittling their reasoning.

It's a very ominous sign for his leadership. Frankly, I'm sort of astonished that it hasn't happened before now, but it's a great tribute to either their loyalty to Tom DeLay or their fear of him.

It's window dressing for the benefit of social conservatives, ... The president may feel that whatever support he will lose among fiscal conservatives, he will win from conservatives proud of him for bootlegging vouchers in the relief plan.

It's really the policy. And policies that presidents are committed to are discarded only with great reluctance - and most often not at all.

He's like Yosemite Sam. You can see the steam coming out of his ears.

He really has got to use the State of the Union to bolster his support, to really try to cement the kind of emotional support that he has enjoyed in the past from people.

The ground rules of the congressional district configuration in the state are rigged in favor of incumbents of both parties.

And Cheney is like a member of the Bush family. The president would no sooner push Cheney overboard than he would Jeb.