Category: Verbatim

In response to the RNC’s 12-hour online town hall to “explain the Democratic health care bill,” DNC Press Secretary Hari Sevugan issued
the following statement: “We’re planning a 12-second town hall to explain every last detail of the GOP health care plan.”

I can tell you right now, if we don’t pass this bill, I don’t care who you are. if you have a D behind your name and this bill has not been passed, you are in tremendous peril next year.

— House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC), talking with Politico about the health care reform bill.

We’ll come after you.

— RNC Chairman Michael Steele, in an interview on Top Line, warning Republicans who support President Obama on economic stimulus or health care.

Sarah Palin thinks the answer to energy is ‘Drill, baby, drill.’ It’s a lot more complicated, Sarah.

— Vice President Joe Biden, quoted by ABC News, campaigning in New York’s 23rd congressional district.

I think we should thank John McCain for picking her, in terms of how it helped us win in 2008.

— Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, on Sarah Palin in an interview on Meet the Press.

And one of the things we will do when we’re one nation is to end the moral outrage of 44 million people without health insurance in the richest country in the world, 9 million children whose parents can’t take them to the doctor when they get sick ’cause they can’t pay the bill. I’m gonna do that, and also help the millions who have insurance that can’t pay it, by creating national health insurance pools like the ones members of Congress get our insurance from.

— Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), during his run for president in 2004 — as a Democrat — when he supported a public option as part of any health care reform effort, TPM reports.

If Dick Cheney can support marriage, so can every senator. So can every Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative. Equality should know no bounds, and we must not rest until we have marriage in all fifty of these United States.

— Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), speaking at a fundraising dinner in support of gay marriage.

And so this idea that we’re suddenly going to establish litmus tests, and all across the country, we’re going to purge the party of anybody who doesn’t agree with us 100 percent — that guarantees Obama’s re-election. That guarantees Pelosi is Speaker for life. I mean, I think that is a very destructive model for the Republican Party.

— Newt Gingrich, in an interview on Fox News.

Callista and I are going to think about this in February 2011. And we are going to reach out to all of our friends around the country. And we’ll decide, if there’s a requirement as citizens that we run, I suspect we probably will. And if there’s not a requirement, if other people have filled the vacuum, I suspect we won’t.

— Newt Gingrich, asked if was going to run for president in 2012 on C-SPAN this morning.

“Who cares what – Yeah, yeah, I can see the headline now. I’m getting better, guys. I’m getting a little better, you know what I mean?”

Vice Pres. Joe Biden, in response to reporters asking about criticism of the Obama administration’s Afghanistan and Pakistan policies from former Vice Pres. Dick Cheney.

As some Republican senators have said publicly — that if we kill Obama on this, and we destroy this, and we defeat this, that will drive a stake through the political heart of this administration. I just find that about as irresponsible of a thing as I can think of.

— Former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), quoted by The Hill, on the health care reform efforts.