$100,000 donors buy access to Congress and the White House. We believe it's long past time to clean up Washington.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the influence of money in politics and the need for reform.
William J. Clinton's quote emphasizes the significant power that wealthy donors possess in influencing government decisions and access to political leaders, particularly in Congress and the White House. It calls for a necessary reform in the political system to reduce the impact of money in politics and advocate for a cleaner, more transparent governance process.
In practice
Using this quote in a political debate to emphasize the need for campaign finance reform.
You know, there was a recent poll which said that young people in the generation of the students here felt it was far more likely that they would see a UFO than that they would draw Social Security... It's very important you understand this. Once you understand this, you realize this is not an episode from the X Files, and you're not more likely to see a UFO if you do certain specific things.
When we got organized as a country, [and] wrote a fairly radical Constitution, with a radical Bill of Rights, giving radical amounts of freedom to Americans, it was assumed that Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly...When personal freedom is being abused, you have to move to limit it.
For too long we've been told about 'us' and 'them.' Each and every election we see a new slate of arguments and ads telling us that 'they' are the problem, not 'us.' But there can be no 'them' in America. There's only us.
There is a huge body of business evidence now showing that energy savings give better service at lower cost with higher profit. We have to tear down barriers to successful markets and we have to create incentives to enter them.
Demand that your government pays more attention. It's immoral that people in Africa die like flies of diseases that no one dies of in the United States. And the more disease there is, the more political unrest there will be, leading to more Darfurs, which the U.S. will have to pay to fix.
I was not elected to produce a pile of vetoes.
You call that statesmanship. I call it an emotional spasm.
Government ... can't be trusted to control its own bureaucrats or collect taxes equitably or fill a pothole, much less decide which of its citizens to kill.
All talk on Islamic States is just an empty dream. No man in his right sense would accept a nation which bases its political administration on religion, and in a country like Malaysia with its multiracial and multireligious people, there is no room for an Islamic State.
A political problem thought of in military terms eventually becomes a military problem.
I will defend Europe; it is our civilisation which is at stake... I will work to rebuild ties between Europe and its citizens.
Politics: the art of appearing candid and completely open while concealing as much as possible.
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