How important is it to balance principle with pragmatism?
It’s very important. It’s very important to keep your principle the main focus of your attention. But your principle cannot be a selfish principle, your principle cannot be: “what is in my best interest?” In a situation like this, your principle has got to be: “what is my obligation and responsibility on behalf of the people that you represent?” Making life better, more secure, and more interesting for them. What are members of Congress talking about when they’re huddled together on the floor? There’s an awful lot of things…There are sometimes very simple questions: Are you going to vote for this? What do you think of this? What are the objectives? Is this something that we need to do? Is this something that we should do? There are others things too. There are things about what’s going on in your district, what is it like where you live, where are you from. There’s definitely some small talk on the floor. But the small talk is not really too small. Because people want to know the peopl
