• If we in this election kill rail … the federal government is not going to hand over that $1.5 billion [in rail funding] to a mayor who says he wants to kill rail.
• Source: The Los Angeles Times   |   Honolulu, Hawaii   |   November 5, 2012
• Honolulu, Hawaii mayoral candidate Kirk Caldwell, speaking about the consequences of electing his opponent, former Hawaii Gov. Ben Cayetano, who is running solely because he is against the long-planned rail project along the city's coastline.

• I'm having lunch delivered for the 12 or so of you hanging at my place.
• Source: Politico   |   Newark, New Jersey   |   November 2, 2012
• Newark, New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker, via Twitter. Booker opened up his own residence to neighbors who were still without power after hurricane Sandy.

• I didn’t mind getting this tattoo because it is something that I could live with and it’s something that I believe in.
• Source: ABC News   |   November 1, 2012
• Indiana resident, Eric Hartsburg, who was paid $15,000 by an anonymous Republican eBay user, to get the Romney logo permanently inked on the side of his head.
• 2 Comments

• This wasn't an issue where anyone in state government could have done something to avoid it
• Source: Reuters   |   October 31, 2012
• South Carolina Governor, Nikki Haley, seeking to further explain the massive security breach at the state's Department of Revenue that exposed as many as 3.6 million Social Security numbers and 387,000 credit and debit card numbers to a foreign hacker.

• I don’t have a feud with the guy, but I wish he’d do his job.
• Source: Politico   |   October 30, 2012
• New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, admonishing Atlantic City Mayor Lorenzo Langford, for not getting the city properly evacuated before hurricane Sandy struck on Monday.

• If we lose Janice, there's going to be national headlines all over the country -- teaparty goes down
• Source: McClatchy Newspapers   |   October 29, 2012
• Norm Hughes, a conservative activist, on the upcoming recall election of Troy, Mich., Mayor Janice Daniels.
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• Fortunately somebody wiped it off before Michelle saw it.
• Source: New York Daily News   |   Nation   |   October 26, 2012
• President Barack Obama, referring to the lipstick stain he had after singer Katy Perry's grandmother kissed him backstage at a campaign rally in the battleground state of Nevada.

• The people of one county cannot be indifferent to the welfare of the people in another county.
• Source: GOVERNING   |   Nation   |   October 25, 2012
• Thomas Jordan Jarvis, North Carolina’s governor from 1879 to 1885.

• You think this guy has a right to vote? Not in my world.
• Source: Reuters   |   Rhode Island   |   October 24, 2012
• Joseph DeLorenzo, chairman of the Cranston, R.I., Board of Canvassers, referring to a person who served nearly 40 years in prison for killing a child and applied for an absentee ballot. DeLorenzo refused the convict's request and quit his job after the state Board of Elections warned he could face prosecution for doing so.

• The idea of having a single-sex school, focused on our young men -- I knew it had ingredients of greatness.
• Source: Newark Star-Ledger   |   New Jersey   |   October 23, 2012
• Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, N.J., where the state's first and only single-sex, non-charter public school opened last month.

• My sense is that the economy is the big issue in every race, whether it's for president or dog catcher.
• Source: GOVERNING   |   Nation   |   October 22, 2012
• Michael Petrilli, executive vice president of the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute and former associate assistant deputy education secretary under President George W. Bush.

• You can't make decisions based on the basis of whether or not somebody's going to sue you or then you'll never do anything.
• Source: AP/CBS News   |   Illinois   |   October 19, 2012
• Cook County, Ill., Board President Toni Preckwinkle, who said she wouldn't be surprised if her proposal to tax bullets and guns as a way of reducing high crime rates in Chicago sparks a legal challenge. Preckwinkle is one of Governing's 2012 Public Officials of the Year.

• Our country might have been better off if it was still just men voting.
• Source: Daily Mail   |   Mississippi   |   October 18, 2012
• Janis Lane, the head of the Central Mississippi Tea Party, in response to whether she thinks there are too many male politicians telling women what to do with their bodies.
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• I don’t know if I feel betrayed or not, but right now I’m confused.
• Source: Washington Post   |   Maryland   |   October 17, 2012
• Angel Nunez, a bishop at the Bilingual Christian Church of Baltimore, who supports making some undocumented immigrants eligible for in-state tuition but opposes same-sex marriage -- both issues are on the Maryland November ballot. Immigration advocacy organizations recently formed an alliance with gay rights groups to urge passage of both.

• Will the anti-tax [fervor] of the U.S. government continue? No, I don’t think that’s possible.
• Source: GOVERNING   |   Nation   |   October 16, 2012
• Joshua Schank, president and CEO of the Eno Center for Transportation and former transportation adviser for then-Sen. Hillary Clinton, on how he thinks government will have changed 25 years from now. Read more public officials' predictions about what government will look like in 2037 below.