Politics & Power Quote by George J. Mitchell

Mitchell’s line reads like a mild procedural observation, but it’s really an indictment delivered in a diplomat’s register. “First” signals a methodical briefing, the voice of a majority leader and negotiator laying out constraints before the bargaining even starts. He’s not praising modesty; he’s warning that the system’s wiring punishes ambition.

The phrase “isn’t well suited” is the tell. It dodges moral blame while still assigning responsibility to structure: bicameralism, committee chokepoints, leadership bottlenecks, and the ever-present veto opportunities that turn big bills into hostage situations. By calling measures “large and complex,” Mitchell points at the modern state’s reality: health care, budgets, financial regulation, climate policy. These aren’t boutique tweaks. They’re interlocking systems that require coordinated changes, which Congress handles poorly because its incentives reward fragmentation, symbolic messaging, and short-term wins over coherent design.

Context matters: Mitchell is a creature of the Senate, an institution famous for protecting minority rights and infamous for turning them into minority rule. The subtext is that grand reforms don’t fail only because they’re controversial; they fail because the process metabolizes complexity into delay, carve-outs, and procedural warfare. It’s a way of reframing “gridlock” from a character flaw in politicians to a predictable outcome of rules.

There’s also a quiet political move here: lower expectations, justify incrementalism, and preemptively explain why the final product will look messy. Mitchell’s realism doubles as a shield for compromise.