Quotes By Claire McCaskill

There are three legs of the stool; spending, entitlements and making the tax code fair and equitable. That's the three legs of the stool. If we do all of those in a responsible, bipartisan way, I think the American people would all be very, very happy.

All the movies where I play nice guys don't seem to do very well.

I am a small-town girl.

I started in the mailroom, literally, as an intern... in 1974. The legislator I was working for at the time said, 'I want you to get your law degree and come back here and get elected and be the first woman governor.' I kind of took that guy seriously - I thought that sounded like a pretty good idea.

There's nothing that irritates Americans more than the fact that some members of Congress think they are entitled to their own set of rules. And it's true - too many people in Washington live in an alternate reality.

You know, we've got to be responsible about our debt. We don't want the United States to ever be a dead beat, and not be able to pay its bills, either to our soldiers who are fighting or to Social Security recipients.

The political system loves the extremes, it doesn't so much show a lot love for the moderates.

Only in Washington would the Republican operatives get the entire press corps ginned up over the notion that I'm going to be home campaigning instead of going to a bunch of worthless parties at a convention that's only being held to do something we all know is going to happen anyway.

I'm a moderate. I hang out in the middle. I vote against my party with some regularity and try to compromise. It doesn't appear right now that the Republican Party is welcoming moderates any more.

When you work in the United States Senate, and you are around people of all different ideas and beliefs, you realize that what our Founding Fathers did that was so genius, is that they made the Senate the place where compromises are supposed to happen because of the makeup of the Senate.

Do I want Social Security to be there for my kids and my grandkids? Absolutely. Will I fight like a tiger to make sure that we protect Social Security? I absolutely will.

I'm asking regular folks to be my super PAC.

I was in the room with, you know, more than a dozen Republicans trying to negotiate the stimulus. Most of them decided the politics of the situation meant they should walk away, even if it wasn't responsible in terms of what our country needed right then.

Well, I'm wrestling alligators.

I have been very independent from day I arrived in Washington.

You know I think the president has to really focus on getting elected to a second term in 2012. And I need to focus on making sure I'm accountable to the people of Missouri.

No commander in chief would ever say, 'I'm not going to listen to the guys on the ground.'

I've got a really hard election. If you had a really hard election and it was after Labor Day would you go to North Carolina to a bunch of parties and glad-handing or would you stay home and work as hard as you know how to convince Missourians they should rehire you?

I don't know how anyone can keep a straight face and say they are for deficit reduction while they insist on a permanent tax cut for the wealthiest Americans, completely unpaid for.

I'm the only United States Senator in the country that I'm aware of that's had the far left up on TV and the far right up on TV against me at the same time.

When the Tea Party comes to town, compromise goes out the door.

Obviously, I have been a pro-choice candidate for my entire political career, and obviously there is controversy always surrounding this issue.

You never know what'll happen in politics.

I voted against my party with some frequency, because of my independence. I've just got to remind Missourians that I am independent and that I try to call them like I see them, and sometimes my party is wrong on some things.

I think, first of all, you know, Washington has a bad habit of a very short attention span.

What we have done with No Child Left Behind is squeeze the creativity out of the classroom because teachers have begun to just teaching to the test.

Corporate governance is a huge issue too. We don't have women on these corporate boards. More than half of the students in law school are women, more than half of the women, I think, in medical school now are women.

My first obligation is my job. It's very hard to really get into campaign mode when you've got to focus on doing the work.

I think I'm the last Democrat left in the Senate after Russ Feingold was defeated that won't take earmarks.

Somehow in the public sector, if you start in the mailroom and spend your life getting promoted, it's unseemly.