The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy.
Journalism's ultimate purpose is to inform the reader, to bring him each day a letter from home and never to permit the serving of special interests.
We pay a price when special interests win out over the collective national interest.
People are rapidly losing hope and trust. They believe their government has been captured by special interests and no longer cares about them, and they are right.
We didn't become the most prosperous country in the world just by rewarding greed and recklessness. We didn't come this far by letting the special interests run wild. We didn't do it just by gambling and chasing paper profits on Wall Street. We built this country by making things, by producing goods we could sell.
I think after Sandy Hook, when Obama went out, and he talked a lot about gun control and met with the parents, there was a sense that something was going to happen. But then, I guess, the power of special interests was greater than public sentiment.
The biggest problem that we have is that California is being run now by special interests. All of the politicians are not anymore making the moves for the people, but for special interests and we have to stop that.
As dismayed as Americans are with the influence of the special interests that finance election campaigns, they've been reluctant to embrace the alternative: taxpayer-financed elections.
I do a lot of referendums. They can't talk back. They don't have wives. They don't have friends who tell you how to run the campaign. They are supported by special interests, so there's a lot of money in them.
Democrats believe we must create jobs, not protect the special interests; build the economy from the middle out, not the top down.