Caucus Quotes

I certainly want to be the whip, and that's an election every two years in the Senate Democratic caucus.

The caucus is not open to former Senators.

It had long been established in the Civil Worlds that public business was to be transparent, and personal business opaque; but it was as well recognised that the two would always have a turbulent interface, and that the clique, the caucus, and the conspiracy were as ineradicable features of civility as the council or the committee.

The convention will be dead-locked, and after the other candidates have gone their limit, some twelve or fifteen men, worn-out and bleary-eyed for lack of sleep, will sit down about two in the morning around a table in a smoke-filled room in some hotel and decide the nomination. When that time comes [Warren Gamaliel] Harding will be selected.

This day I learned that the caucus club meets at certain times in the garret of Tom Dawes, the adjutant of the Boston regiment.... There they smoke tobacco till you cannot see from one end of the room to another. There they drink flip, I suppose, and there they choose a moderator who puts questions to the vote regularly; and selectmen, assessors, collectors, firewards, and representatives are regularly chosen before they are chosen in the town [of Boston].

Political conventions are as fascinating as a circus or a hanging.

GNOSTICS, n. A sect of philosophers who tried to engineer a fusion between the early Christians and the Platonists. The former would not go into the caucus and the combination failed, greatly to the chagrin of the fusion managers.

Iowa caucuses have been a graveyard for hawkish Democrats.

Senators here were elected to the Senate and not to the caucus ... great questions of this sort should be debated in public and decided in public.

I would love to meet with the Black Caucus, it's great, the Congressional Black Caucus, I think it's great.

I have an ability to work collegially across a wide range of interests in the caucus and in the Congress, and an ability to work on a bipartisan basis. Appropriators pride themselves on that.

Caucus unity always needs to be foremost in the mind of the leader. During a leadership campaign, it's kind of natural that groupings develop, and now I have to make sure that all melts away.

The Caucus I joined in 1953 had as many Boer War veterans as men who had seen active service in World War II, three from each. The Ministry appointed on 5 December 1972 was composed entirely of ex-servicemen: Lance Barnard and me.

We'll vote when we have the votes.

My teenage children watched Senator Clinton on the Today Show, mouths agape. They attended our local caucus with me and saw hundreds of our friends and neighbors gathered in the elementary school gym on that Sunday afternoon, despite an ugly Maine snowstorm. They listened to the thoughtful searching debates and saw us cast our votes. How could anyone suggest we didn't know exactly what we were doing? 'What's the point of electing someone who doesn't believe in the American people?' they asked. 'If she wants to ignore us now when she's only a candidate, what will she do as the President?'

I have learned the difference between a cactus and a caucus. On a cactus, the pricks are on the outside.

Caucuses are different than primaries, and winner-take-all primaries are how Mitt Romney eventually took over Newt Gingrich in 2012 and why Rick Santorum left.

I've been the co-chair of the Non-Partisan Women's Caucus and vice-chair for several years, taking a leadership role in this women's organization.

So the result was that as one approached a political convention for most of the 19th century and for most of the 20th century until the 1960's, part of the drama was the fact that you didn't know ultimately who was going to be the nominee at the end of that convention week.

Whatever historical or ideological relevance the Iowa caucus has will more than likely not get you to the White House, but it will probably get you a sweet gig at Fox News.

There is a reality to the primary process, and you don't win primaries by being ahead in national polls. You win them by winning Iowa, by winning New Hampshire, by winning South Carolina, winning Florida.

I hope I am the Tim Tebow of the Iowa caucuses.

When I was in the House for 16 years, I caucused with the Democrats.

I have been in the Democratic Caucus in the Senate for over 24 years.

The point is that you see candidates running in these different kinds of contests. A primary shows you something that's different from a state party convention, which shows you something that is different than what a caucus shows you.