Senate Experience Quotes

I’m better speaking with my own voice. That is one of the reasons I left the Senate

If you look at where presidents come from, they're former governors or senators.

The importance of building relationships among colleagues, of trying to create coalitions behind the issues that you are championing, was not something I ever had much insight into until I was elected and started serving in the Senate.

When I was first elected to the Senate, I was fortunate to be appointed to the Intelligence Committee. There, I saw up close the dedication and commitment of the men and women of our intelligence agencies.

People in Nevada know me from the street to the ring to the Senate chambers. I've never had to prove my manhood to anyone.

I think I'm one of five people in the Senate who's never been a politician before. And now that I am a politician, what I find weird about it is that I respect myself less.

I've been an Obama supporter since he announced he was campaigning. I was aware of him as a senator, but I wasn't as engaged as I probably should've been.

When I was in the Senate, I had eight great years working with the community on major issues, trying to deal with problems that people brought to my attention. That's certainly what I intend to do as president. I think that is what President Obama has done.

I loved being in the Senate. That was a wonderful experience.

I have been in the Senate for 30 years practicing comedy.

I've been critical of Hillary Clinton and [Barack] Obama, for sure. But John McCain had a proven record as a senator. He also ran for president [in 2016]. But he got a lot of stuff done while he was a United States senator and still does.

[Hillary Clinton] showed, while in the Senate, that ability to connect and reach across and to forge alliances. I think she will be better [than Barack Obama]. But I think the problem with connecting emotionally with the people remains at large is - in a wholesale way.

It's hard to think of John McCain without thinking about what a ball of energy he is. I remember when I was working in the Senate, he just, enters every room and went down every hallway at the highest speed possible and just was always that way. I think people saw that when he was running for president, that that's the way he handled everything. It's just this constant never let up attitude.

When I was in Minnesota serving in the state Senate and in Washington, D.C., I did everything I could to defeat cap and trade. I didn't work to implement cap and trade.

There's one advantage in having been around as long as I have. Everybody in the Senate knows me, and - I'm going to say something presumptuous, to repeat myself - I think most respect me.

I'd worked in the state senate in college and seen how important legal decisions were. And at the last minute, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison said, 'Why don't you come do an internship?' That turned into almost 15 years in the government, in the White House, and at the State Department.

Well, I was 29 years old when I came to the United States Senate, and I have learned a lot.

My tenure in the Senate was really as an independent and whichever, regardless of party label.

Your first six months in the Senate, you spend a lot of time wondering how the hell you got here. After that, you look around at your colleagues and wonder how the hell any of them got here.

As you know, John McCain is an older, white-haired man who has been in the Senate for over twenty years, voted for the Iraq War, and said Barack Obama did not have the experience to be president. I'm sorry, that's our intro for next week when Joe Biden is on, I got confused.

I was the only person of color in the Senate, and my colleagues were Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms and Trent Lott.

I enjoyed my new position as vice president, but it took me a while to get used to the fact that I no longer had the voting privileges I had enjoyed for 10 years as a senator.

I think women bring a different perspective and that we tend to be more collaborative in our approach. I served in the Iowa Senate back in the '90s, when there weren't a lot of us. At the time, I think there were five or six women, and two or three of them were Republicans and two or three were Democrats.

Over my 24 years in the Senate, Jim, I've never voted against anyone because of their substantive views.

Presumptuous for me to say, but at least - at a minimum - I've been able to influence the direction of the Democratic Party on foreign policy. And I've been relatively - presumptuous to say - relatively successful legislatively in the Senate, being able to win a lot of Republican friends, and being able to cross the aisle.