Rahm Emanuel Quotes
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I remember my father, when I said I was going down to Little Rock to work for Governor Clinton's run for president, he thought maybe somebody needed to check the medication cabinet. He thought somebody was playing around with it. He had never heard of him, he said. I said, 'Well, I think he's going to be the next President of the United States.'
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Today, because of President Obama's courage, kids can stay on their parent's plan until they are 26. Insurers cannot kick you off your policy because you have hit your limit. They will not be able to deny you because you have a pre-existing condition.
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They ended up spending a total, their campaign plus the independent, about 1.3 million. I only ended up spending about - not only, but I spent about 2 million. But I had no intention of doing that until I was attacked with a negative ad by an independent group.
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I join President Obama and the vast majority of Chicagoans who are tired of waiting for Washington to get serious about gun violence.
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In millions of encounters each year between the police and the public, it may be too much to expect that every officer will always get it right. But it is not too much to expect that we can put the right safeguards in place to hold officers accountable when they get it wrong.
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I've never been in a place where winning has hurt the ability to do anything.
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What is more comforting to the terrorists around the world: the failure to pass the 9/11 legislation because we lacked a majority of the majority,' or putting aside partisan politics to enact tough new legislation with America's security foremost in mind?
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I still believe the Lewinsky investigation was way off from the focus of what Whitewater was, which turned out to be nothing at the end of the process. And I think that there were people who were determined as political opponents to not allow his presidency to succeed.
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I can't imagine being mayor and not having had the experience working for President Clinton or President Obama, or, for that matter, working in Congress. On the other hand, I think I would have been a better adviser had I been mayor first. If I had had this job first, I could have seen the implications of things I was doing.
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There are too many senior citizens and good residents in Chicago who are sick and tired of having to walk several blocks out of their way when they leave their homes just to avoid the gangs and drug dealers on the street corner.
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You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.
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My attitude is govern as if you've run your last race. That's not to say I've run my last race, but govern with a liberation and a freedom; change your mind frame to operate that way.
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There's no safe Republican district. You can run, but you cannot hide.
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I saw the president make the tough calls in the Situation Room - and today, our troops in Iraq have finally come home so America can do some nation building here at home. That was the change that we believed in. That was the change we fought for. That was the change President Obama delivered.
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We invoke the sacrifices of our fallen heroes in the abstract, but we seldom take time to thank them individually.
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The overwhelming number of police officers in Chicago are doing good work under difficult conditions. They put their lives on the line every day in situations none of us can fully comprehend or appreciate.
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I would like to run for the mayor of the city of Chicago. That has always been an aspiration of mine even when I was in the House of Representatives.
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Because of the president's leadership, every American will have access to affordable, quality health care.
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When parents tell their children not to congregate on corners, especially in groups, out of fear for them encountering the police, what does that say? We have a trust problem.
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We can define the rules of police-citizen engagement, but everyday decisions will always be made by men and women in uniform, on the street, in the community, under extreme pressure, in a dangerous world where guns easily fall into the wrong hands.
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As individuals, we will be judged in our lives by the totality of our actions. Not one thing will stand out. And I think that's how we get judged by our colleagues and that's how we get judged by the good lord.
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When President Obama entered the White House, the economy was in a free-fall. The auto industry: on its back. The banks: frozen up. More than three million Americans had already lost their jobs. And America's bravest, our men and women in uniform, were fighting what would soon be the longest wars in our history.
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I see city finances within the context of an economic strategy... We are going to solve our financial problems by growing the economy, and I have rejected some corners that have called for a slash-and-burn approach, and I've rejected others who have called for raising taxes and leaving government as is.
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Everybody knows they're on the Obama team: There isn't vice presidential vs. presidential division, there's not a generational pull. People have internalized that this is a real moment in history.