Marshall Wittmann Quotations

He could then say with some credibility that progress is being made and paint the Democrats as the party of defeat.

Just by waiting for the Republicans to self-destruct, the Democrats could lose their chance at rebuilding a majority. Politics works in strange ways.

You have this dry, parched field, and any spark can set it off. Any hope for a honeymoon for Bush is now dead.

Yes, the economy may be doing well, but the standard of living for many Americans is not improving. If the president can't address that anomaly, then his message will likely fall flat.

Usually, a candidate has to nail down the base and move to the centre after the nomination, ... She has the flexibility because she has so much affection from the base.

Blunt is an insider. He is soft-spoken, but a hardcore right-winger who has very close relations with the business community and ideological conservatives. He's not as much of a lightning rod as DeLay.

Conservatives have woken from a slumber and realized the government has grown exponentially. McCain has been an often-lonely voice calling for a brake on government spending and more fiscal sobriety.

Boehner should not start putting pictures on the wall and hanging drapes. This could be a very temporary job if the Republicans lose in November.

Thanks to Gingrich, 1994 was that rare moment when the opposition party actually had developed alternative ideas about how to govern.

Even a sitting president who has a vice president running for office doesn't have a great impact on the way the administration behaves. The goal of the next three years is to repair the president's popularity and resolve the situation in Iraq to some decent outcome. ... If Bush leaves office in January 2009 with Iraq in chaos, nothing else will matter.

This is radioactive. This is the issue that dare not speak its name.

Congress has become a playground sandbox with no adult supervision.

Clearly, they have to make gains in 2006, or it's possible there will be a contest.

He's lowered the gap between the Democrats and Republicans on defense. It may very well be an ephemeral victory, but the Democrats will take it. Chuck gave them an issue - Dubai - that they're going to bring up over and over again.

They looked into the abyss and saw this whole thing falling apart and realized they needed to get something done over a serious issue. It was a rare moment of government at its best, and it's not clear how long it will last.

The groups want certain questions asked of Roberts to lay a predicate for future nominees. Unless there's a revelation we can't fathom, this will be the meat of the hearings.

It's the opposite of what Frank Sinatra sang. If you can make it there, you can't necessarily make it anywhere in the Republican Party.

It's almost like Bush is running for reelection with peace and prosperity.

It's a unique Washington story. Usually you rise, you fall and then you become a lucrative lobbyist. Here's a case where he rose, he fell and he stuck it out in the institution.

There were about a dozen of us wanting to stop this or that Clinton plan. When the Mariana Islands came up, I wondered how did this become a conservative issue?

This is the Lord's gift to the Democratic Party. It is not every day that the Democratic Party gets to the right of the Republicans on national security.

If Fitzgerald comes down with something that strikes the White House, all bets are off with conservatism. It's the post-Bush era.