Charlie Cook Quotations

The risk is enormous to Democrats. Even talking about censure or impeachment threatens to really agitate the Republican base.

Not a day goes by that I don't click on RealClearPolitics at least once, the presidential poll charts, graphs and moving averages are great. If RCP didn't already exist, somebody would have to invent it.

The idea of regularly acknowledging our indebtedness to the natural world and giving thanks for the many gifts we receive from it, or considering other species to be our close "relations" which many indigenous peoples still do, couldn't be more alien to most of us.

Now that we're essentially an indoor species, walled off from the world of other life forms, we're divorced from the very domain that supports and sustains our lives.

Until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore, you will not know the terror of being forever lost at sea.

The debt ceiling debacle is almost a horrible metaphor: It's as if a bomb went off at 800 Pennsylvania Avenue and sent shrapnel flying in every direction. I don't know what these guys think they're doing, but it looks like they're committing political suicide.

Walking is simple and second nature for most of us. It's an everyday kind of activity, not something that's frequently the rage of fashion or touted for its sex appeal. Yet few physical pursuits in this life are ultimately as rewarding. It's a wonderfully satisfying way to spend an hour, and afternoon, a day, or longer.

And what exactly is nature walking? It's any and every kind of walking you can do in the natural world. The activity encompasses strolling, striding, sauntering, stepping, treading, tramping, traipsing, traversing, rambling, roving, roaming, racewalking, hiking, meandering, wandering, wending, pacing, peregrinating, perambulating ... in natural surroundings.

Your deepest roots are in nature. No matter who you are, where you live, or what kind of life you lead, you remain irrevocably linked with the rest of creation.

Right now Mississippi is at the top ebb of the sort of power curve and Louisiana is in a bit of a slump.

I wouldn't want to stand between Chuck Schumer and anything he really wanted.

I felt bad about the fumble. I didn't see a defensive back come up from the side, and he got the ball out of there.

He'll be a force, but obviously it will be a blow if his signature issue goes down in flame.

It can't hurt the president to remove himself from the current context of scandals, miscues and partisanship and put him in a statesman setting.

I think the leadership conference will be the first major cattle show before the 2008 election, and it should be pretty much mandatory attendance for any candidate seeking election in 2008.

Playing at this level, it's ... a much faster game, and I've seen improvement (in my game). They've been on me about my play defensively down low, and I've made improvements there, and they're using me on the penalty-kill more and more.

I think people have a sense that right now Democrats are completely powerless in Washington, that they're just sort of bystanders. But there's a danger of Democrats' looking always like they are carping. It's important for them to articulate some kind of vision.

I think President Clinton would have liked to have traveled a lot in early '93 and reconnect with people. But the fact is, the administration was so disorganized and they were so unfocused that he didn't have the luxury of being able to travel.

I think if McCain-Feingold goes down, Sen. McCain will still be a force in the Senate,

Usually you jump up a little bit, then there's a settling back down of a few points after that,

The exemplary focus, discipline and execution that was so prevalent during (Bush's) first term is sorely lacking.

The president has to go on national television and tread water for an hour, while trying to make it look he's swimming the butterfly stroke.

The quickest, simplest, easiest thing a home-owner can do is to create a defensible space around their home.

The president looks terrible. The administration is kind of playing catch-up now.

Those who landed in Rhode Island or Utah, I doubt will stay, ... But those in Baton Rouge, Shreveport, Dallas or Houston are more likely to stay because it is not such an alien culture. And of those who come back, what will the mix be? More African-Americans? More whites? You could argue either way.

The swagger is gone from this White House.

The visuals coming out of Hurricane Katrina suddenly took issues he was pushing and put them front and center,

They know they have horrible problems and they came up with the least risky move they could make.

By an eight-point margin, voters are now more likely to call themselves Democrats than Republicans; there was no gap in self-identification a year ago.

A less visible part of the damage done by Katrina may be what's happened to the President's approval rating.

A lot of members of Congress just like to hear themselves. They want to issue a press release back home. They want to make a little bit of a splash in the local papers, local TV stations, (but) most of these things aren't going to be enacted into law.

The last vestiges of the strength he got from his handling of 9/11 are gone.