It is our job above all in politics to tackle the big issues and to explain them and have the honesty to say to people 'There are no easy solutions here.'

The proliferation of outlets that digital technology has enabled has itself contributed to the changing nature of what we regard as 'news' and the way in which many citizens perceive politics.

Broadcasters or politicians or writers who think that they are respecting Struggle Street the battlers by dumbing things down into one-line sound bites are not respecting them they are treating them with contempt. It's our job above all in politics to tackle the big issues and to explain them.

This is not the time for partisan bickering. This is not the time for politics as usual. Some of us are Democrats. Some of us are Republicans. Some of us are Independents. Above all we must be Oklahomans first.

Gossip is easy politics is hard.

Does politics have to be injected into everything?

American politics used to be an amateur sport. But somewhere along the way we handed over to professionals all the things people used to do for free.

Men enter local politics solely as a result of being unhappily married.

In my case I was covering politics in Texas as a newspaper man in the 1960's.

The tax issue is the most powerful issue in American politics going back to the Tea Party. People say 'Oh Grover Norquist has power.' No. Grover Norquist and Americans for Tax Reform focus on the tax issue. The tax issue is a powerful issue.