Chuck Todd Quotes

In the end, Ted Kennedy was a politician, plain and simple. Yet he embodied how politics and public service can be successfully intertwined. You can't be a good public servant without being a good politician. Kennedy was both.

More Americans, and I have my own anecdotes of people that have a friend that never would've had a gun, thought about, and now is thinking about it.

I played French horn, and I certainly do miss it. I miss it. I wish I had the time to keep up with it. It's like exercising: You have to keep it up, especially the muscles in your lips to deal with the French horn.

The most successful politicians are the ones who embrace their best traits while turning their liabilities into loveable attributes. And yet, many a candidate tries to run as something they aren't simply because the strategy dictates it.

We're in a political depression - a great political depression

Democrats will say the money they give to Planned Parenthood does not go to abortions. That the money they give to Planned Parenthood only goes to other women's health issues, including mammograms and things like that.

America has a love-hate relationship with celebrity. We love to follow celebrities, but we also love to mock them. And secretly, we believe we're better than they are.

Presidents seem to fall into two positive categories: they're one of us, or they're heroes. Both McCain and Obama probably see themselves as potential heroes - presidents who will be looked up to, not presidents everyday people will remark are 'just like me.'

It seems to me that this debate, whether Islam is a religion of peace or not, really, it's irrelevant for outsiders. It's for Muslims to decide whether it's a religion of peace or not.

Dick Cheney and Al Gore have redefined the role of the vice president in the minds of the public. It should be a big job, beyond simply checking the health status of the president.

We may like to think politics is a battle of ideas and that the best idea wins out. But that's not true in most elections. Most elections are about the worst ideas losing, not the best ideas winning.

I'm wishing every Saturday had primaries, because welcome to an amazing Sunday, where everything seems a tad bit clearer this morning.

Forget the historic nature of his election having to do with skin color - Obama has an opportunity offered to few presidents: the chance to set the course of the nation for decades, if not generations, to come. Who knows: perhaps in the near future, our grandchildren will spend money with Obama's face on it.

Obama's ability to use his personality to push folks, whether on Capitol Hill or in Europe, means that he has to stay popular. What happens if he loses that popular mandate?

Some day, the public might actually revolt against the undemocratic system of seniority that allows Congress to keep the old ways of Washington ingrained into the culture of Congress.

Jeb Bush is the new John Connelly.

No Republican has ever won South Carolina and Iowa or New Hampshire, as Trump has, without going on to win the nomination.

Every election matters. Anyone that tells you otherwise doesn't understand politics. That said, not every election sends sweeping messages that are easy to discern, but every election provides lessons worth learning.

The idea now that we're going to fight terrorism through gun control I think is just utterly fatuous.

When Dylann Roof walked into a black church, he wanted to start a race war. We didn't let him do that because we didn't cast him as a representative of the white race. We didn't give into his narrative. We did the exact opposite. And I think that we have to be careful not to give into the apocalyptic narrative of ISIS that wants to start a war between Muslims and everybody else.

I'm an avid University of Miami Hurricanes fan. I hope to come to the day where I can still do some stuff for NBC and somehow integrate it with an RV tour of the South for college football. Luckily, my wife, she's a Florida State alum, so I wouldn't have to talk her into it. I think our kids would think we're weird.

McCain needs Hillary to run because that's what keeps the Republican coalition together. She helps unite the Republican base.

One of the more bizarre games I played as a kid was something called 'kill the man.' It was a cross between football and rugby, which found the person carrying the ball a target of some hungry tacklers. I still don't know why we enjoyed the game because it was impossible to win.

Any terrorists that have come here and committee acts from 9/11 have come here in some form of a visa.

The unknown has undone many a president, and no matter the popularity of an Oval Office occupant, any and all presidents are vulnerable. Of course, one thing that seems to set Obama part from his recent predecessors is his ability to keep an inner calm about tough issues.

Alternative facts are not facts. They are falsehoods.

Barack Obama's official nomination as the Democratic Party's standard-bearer was a very poignant moment for millions of Americans. As the first non-white major party nominee, Obama is carrying a big load on his shoulders. He's holding the hopes and dreams of a lot of folks who thought the presidency was only reserved for white men.

Americans are going to see that as the more religious a Muslim is, the more likely they're going to end up somehow fighting for ISIS' cause.

The hardest thing to do in politics is campaign as someone you aren't. People can spot an imposter from a mile away.

Media bias is one thing. Rejection of reality is another

Meanwhile, the Bush dynasty comes to an official end.

I would say that ISIS wants us to think so. And I think that's the real danger here. It's that what ISIS wants the narrative to be is that they are the true Muslims.

With the likely nominations of Barack Obama by the Democrats and John McCain by the Republicans, one of these two parties is headed for a 2009 crack-up that could prove as messy as any party civil war in recent history.

At the moment, the extremists have significant financial popular and theological backing in the Middle East. And that is an enduring phenomenon. And it's one that is going to require a long, ideological war to win.

There's no worse crime in journalism these days than simply deciding something's a story because Drudge links to it.

If Barack Obama goes on to win the election, there will be plenty of ink and video spent on chronicling the historic nature of the turnout among young voters and African-Americans. But as important as both constituencies have been to Obama - particularly in the primaries - it's Hispanics that could be putting him over the top on Nov. 4.

Acceptance speeches can make or break presidential candidacies. It was Al Gore's 2000 acceptance speech that relaunched his candidacy and nearly saved him. John Kerry's speech and overall ineffective convention nearly sank him in 2004 (though he was almost saved by the debates).

The big post-election story if Obama wins the presidency will be in the hands of the ethically embattled Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich. He's not very popular, and has a chance to use his power to appoint an Obama replacement as a step in the direction of political rehabilitation.

Does the terror threat we're facing grow out of a perversion of Islam, or does it represent and extreme, but durable, strain of the religion.

Voters definitely believe Washington is corrupt - but most think it's bipartisan.

Jeb Bush is conservative governor,his record as governor is more conservative than any current republican governor in the country.

I don't get debate agains guns at all. Because we have it after every mass shooting. And now a terror attack. And the proposals that are talked about almost always have nothing to do with this specific event.