_Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, D-Detroit, was in town Wednesday touring MSU facilities and visiting businesses in the Lansing area.
Levin, who is chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services and is a member of the Great Lakes Task Force, is the longest-serving U.S. senator from Michigan, after being elected in 1978. He was elected to his sixth term in 2008 and will be up for re-election in 2015.
Levin stopped by The State News to talk about his time in the Senate and the 2012 election._
–Rachel Jackson, The State News
On education and students finding a job after graduation:
“The commitment to education is critically important to job creation. … (Students) may not be finding (a job) as easily as they should, but they have a lot better chance of finding a job than if they don’t have an education. Do I consider it worthy? I consider it essential in terms of what our lives should be about, in terms of curiosity (and) in terms of knowledge.”
On making progress in a lame-duck Congress:
“Right now, (there is an) effort among Republican candidates (to) suddenly (try) to look more moderate than they are (on) just about every issue.
You’ve got (some) Republicans who really are not moderates; in fact, some of them really look down their nose at moderates.
Some of them say, ‘I didn’t go to Washington to compromise.’ Well, if you’re not willing to compromise, you might as well forget governing — you can’t govern if you can’t compromise. Just because you have your way, if everyone has their own way, it’s gridlock.”
*On young people voting: *
“College students have a huge stake in this campaign. In the 2008 campaign, the outpouring of college students was unlike anything I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been around, I’m sure you’ve noticed, for a few years.
The last time I saw anything like this, like 2008, was in 1960 when John Kennedy was running for president. I’ve never seen anything like it — the campaign by (President) Barack Obama — it was so amazing, the outpouring of energy.
I don’t know that he can ever duplicate (it) more than once or twice in a lifetime. College students sense that there is a lot of issues here, and there is. It’s true as much in 2012 as it was in 2008.”
On the nation’s economic future:
“I will point to history and say two things are true. Number one, there are cycles, and the more determined that your government is to help get out of a recession, the better you are going to be. … Republican presidential candidate Mitt) Romney says government doesn’t create jobs — that’s not true for 20 reasons, (and) one of them is infrastructure.”
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