“If you work for the DNC or RNC, or if you cover politics for the media, elections are the end. The conversation of policy isn’t even really about policy, so much as it’s about how policy will effect the next election. But for others of us, policy is the end. Winning elections is nice, but you don’t elect candidates so that they can stand in front the capitol and look pretty, anymore than you send soldiers to the field for a photo-op. They’re there to do a job. And sometimes the job costs.”
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UPDATE: Thanks to a letter published today in the St. Louis paper, I was reminded of similar, recent remarks by Sen. Claire McCaskill …
“I’m very frustrated with some of the habits around here,” she said. “What happens around here is that so many people are more focused on getting everybody to love them and getting re-elected than they are on solving the really hard stuff. Because when you solve hard stuff, you make people mad.”