They are trying to neutralize this issue cluster with Kerry's war record and with lots of pleasing rhetoric.

It could become much worse. I could imagine a scenario in the next presidential election in which we would look back fondly on the experience of 1996. We really have to deal with issue with soft money and issue advocacy together.

If those train wrecks and if that gamesmanship is being driven by broad political forces, narrow margins in the House and the Senate, divided party government, difficult decisions that have to be made, genuine differences that exist, mobilization of interest groups — if all of those things are true, you are going to find vehicles to have those fights, whether you have a two-year budget cycle or not.

War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.

Any politician who starts shouting election-year demagoguery about the rich and the poor should be asked, "What about the other 90 percent of the people?"

The big divide in this country is not between Democrats and Republicans, or women and men, but between talkers and doers.