Political Campaign Quotes

Like any young person who gets into a political campaign, I joined out of a highfalutin' desire to change the world. But you start to see the sort of tactics people use. You start to see politics not only in the macro but in the micro of the campaign itself. Some people get turned off by this side of it. Other people are drawn to it. ~ Beau Willimon

[In late 1989,] a New York Times/CBS News Poll reported that 64 percent of those polled - the highest percentage ever recorded - now thought that drugs were the most significant problem in the United States. This surge of public concern did not correspond to a dramatic shift in illegal drug activity, but instead was the product of a carefully orchestrated political campaign. ~ Michelle Alexander

I wasn't always a demon.
My name is Maggie Frew, and I grew up a simple human girl in suburban Iowa. I don't carry a pitchfork, or have a forked tail. I'm not a creature from Hell. I'm a political campaign manager. Though, I guess some people might argue those are the same thing. ~ Patricia Murphy

It takes money to run political campaigns. This is a cancer growing on the soul of our democracy. ~ Elizabeth Warren

I am absolutely disgusted that anyone would put thousands of America's boys at risk just to win a Political Campaign. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

My life is not a political campaign. I just write about what is on my mind. I just play whatever I feel like playing. Whatever is in my soul at the time is what I want to do. I have, thank god, enough people who are still interested in what I am doing so that I can go out and keep doing it. ~ Neil Young

We live in a world where finding fault in others seems to be the favorite blood sport. It has long been the basis of political campaign strategy. It is the theme of much television programming across the world. It sells newspapers. Whenever we meet anyone, our first, almost unconscious reaction may be to look for imperfections. ~ Henry B. Eyring

I do not want to be a pawn in a political campaign. ~ Norman Schwarzkopf

America has become the most unequal society among advanced countries, and rich people are now free to spend as much money on political campaigns as they wish. ~ Robert Reich

The Republican Party is slightly ahead of Democrats when it come to devaluing any traditional understanding of foreign and national security policy. This is not surprising, because in all other matter of public policy, the GOP has strictly subordinated practical governance and problem solving to the emotional thematics of an endless political campaign. Whether the topic is Iran, Russia, or the proper level of defense spending at a time of high deficits, the GOP's stance has little to do with the merits of the situation; it is a projection of domestic political sloganeering. Taking a position on anything, whcther it be Ukraine or the efficacy of drones, boils down to a talking-point projection of focus groups-tested emotional themes: strength versus weakness, standing tall versus cutting and running, acting versus thinking." pp. 157-158 ~ Mike Lofgren

But when our elected officials and our political campaign become entirely untethered to reason and facts and analysis, when it doesn't matter what's true and what's not, that makes it all but impossible for us to make good decisions on behalf of future generations. It threatens the values of respect and tolerance that we teach our children and that are the source of America's strength. It frays the habits of the heart that underpin any civilized society -- because how we operate is not just based on laws, it's based on habits and customs and restraint and respect. ~ President Barack Obama

It's much more fun to run a political campaign than it is to be the candidate. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

Well, you know, in any political campaign, you're gonna have people on one side that are gonna slip a reporter something because they think it'll hurt the guy on the other side. ~ Bob Schieffer

Can you let your son's body become the same temperature as your son's head before you turn this into a political campaign against the president? Could you do that? ~ Glenn Beck

Any kind of political campaign that taps the kind of energy that nothing else can reach would generate a tremendous high for everybody involved in it. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

I do not believe that any political campaign justifies the declaration of a moratorium on ordinary common sense. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

The golden rule has no place in a political campaign. ~ John James Ingalls

Political campaigns are the graveyard of real ideas and the birthplace of empty promises. ~ Teresa Heinz

In a political campaign, you can never ever retract anything or admit a mistake."
"Obviously, John subscribes to the Napoleon school of politics," Sophie says. "And look where he ended up... ~ Maria Malonzo

The Supreme Court dealt a huge blow, overturning a 100-year-old precedent that basically corporations couldn't give directly to political campaigns. And everyone is up in arms because they don't like it. The Federal Election Commission can't do anything about it. ~ Lois Lerner

Well I think money has been going into political campaigns for a very long time. ~ Carly Fiorina

The issue that a political campaign would make a human life into - you know - a political football, is unsettling. ~ John Hickenlooper

But having said that, what's happening with campaign finance reform and our political culture is devastating. ~ Robert McChesney

Every great political campaign rewrites the rules; devising a new way to win is what gives campaigns a comparative advantage against their foes. ~ John Podhoretz

Political campaign must not be aimed at collecting ballots, instead, it's honestly aim at seeking support for an ideology. ~ Khem Veasna

The problem isn't too little money in political campaigns, but not enough. ~ Newt Gingrich

Today we have a system where only those individuals with the means of capital and who can both pay the exorbitant application fee and fund a political campaign can vie for the presidency. It would not surprise any close observer to discover that in this inane system, the same unsavory characters who have destroyed the country and looted the treasury and the nation blind are the ones able to run for the presidency! ~ Chinua Achebe

I believe in freedom of speech. And I believe that spending on political campaigns is a form of political speech that is protected under the constitution. ~ Marco Rubio

It's an intolerable abuse of power to have employees who are supposed to be advancing the public interest actually working on political campaigns. ~ Sal Albanese

The main thing that every political campaign in the United States demonstrates is that the politicians of all parties, despite their superficial enmities, are really members of one great brotherhood. Their principal, and indeed their sole, object is to collar public office, with all the privileges and profits that go therewith. They achieve this collaring by buying votes with other people's money. ~ H.L. Mencken

A national political campaign is better than the best circus ever heard of, with a mass baptism and a couple of hangings thrown in. ~ H.L. Mencken

The choice for the judge who believes the death penalty to be immoral is resignation, rather than simply ignoring duly enacted, constitutional laws and sabotaging death penalty cases. He has, after all, taken an oath to apply the laws and has been given no power to supplant them with rules of his own. Of course if he feels strongly enough he can go beyond mere resignation and lead a political campaign to abolish the death penaltyand if that fails, lead a revolution. But rewrite the laws he cannot do. ~ Antonin Scalia

[When a John McCain political campaign video that used her image] That wrinkly white-haired guy used me in his campaign ad, which means I'm running for President. So thanks for the endorsement white-haired dude, and I want America to know I'm like, totally ready to lead. ~ Paris Hilton

Baseball is our national pastime, that is if you discount political campaigning. ~ Ronald Reagan

Putting it as strongly as I can, the failure to give free airtime for our political campaigns endangers our democracy. ~ Walter Cronkite

Since the very beginning of the Communist regime, I had carefully studied books on Marxism and pronouncements by Chinese Communist Party leaders. It seemed to me that socialism in China was still very much an experiment nad had no fixed course of development for the country had yet been decided upon. This, I thought, was why the government's policy was always changing, like a pendulum swinging from left to right and back again. When things went to extremes and problems emerged. Beijing would take corrective measures. Then these very corrective measures went too far and had to be corrected. The real difficulty was, of course, that a state-controlled economy only stifled productivity, and economic planning from Beijing ignored local conditions and killed incentive.

When a policy changed from above, the standards of values changed with it. What was right yesterday became wrong today, and visa versa. Thus the words and actions of a Communist Party official at the lower level were valid for a limited time only... The Cultural Revolution seemed to me to be a swing to the left. Sooner or later, when it had gone too far, corrective measures would be taken. The people would have a few months or a few years of respite until the next political campaign. Mao Zedong believed that political campaigns were the motivating force for progress. So I thought the Proletarian Cultural Revolution was just one of an endless series of upheavals the Chinese people must learn to put up with ~ Nien Cheng

They used to ask: "How will this decision that we make today affect our people in the future?" Now we make decisions based on: "How does it affect me, now? How does it affect the next shareholders meeting, three months ahead? How does it affect my next political campaign?" ~ Jane Goodall

If Scripture were to describe the downfall of an empire in the style adopted by political historians, the common people would not be stirred. ~ Baruch Spinoza

When man has mastered money he shall have mastered not only his economic problem of prosperity but also his political problem, for he will see that money has no place in state functions, and, the money power being entirely in his own hands, he will easily master the state and clearly define its services. Thus money must be seen as the means of mastery of all economic and political problems. Until we have mastered money we shall not master any of our problems. Not money, but a false money system, is the root of all evil. ~ E.C. Riegel

There is an infinity of political errors which, being once adopted, become principles. ~ Guillaume-Thomas Francois Raynal

Fact-checking can wreak havoc on Chinese political mythology. ~ Evan Osnos

I guess you heard, Hillary Clinton has a new campaign slogan: "I've fallen and I can't get up!" ~ Jay Leno

Perhaps we should worry less about judging people for being Mormon or Baptist or Muslim or gay or straight or black or white or Latino or by their religious or political brands and worry more about electing thoughtful, serious and ethical politicians on both sides of the political isle who are willing to work together for progress. ~ Charity Sunshine Tillemann-Dick

I did learn that some of the things that are great for locker rooms are inappropriate for political discourse. That's a wisdom I've garnered. ~ George Allen

The 'either-or' dogmatism, the stubbornly principled refusal to entertain compromise or concession, had served him well and had invariably proved successful in his political 'career' as long as he was combating weak, divided, and irresolute opponents. But it was a massive and insuperable obstacle when enemy positions were strong and united, when initiative had been irretrievably lost, bargaining power was weakening by the day, and more flexible military tactics and more subtle political skills were desperately needed. Not ~ Ian Kershaw

For the first 3 weeks of that month, I was also under internal segregation. This simply meant that no other political prisoner was allowed near me. During meals, I was made to sit apart from the others, often with a guard between us. During my ration of sunshine, I had to sit in my corner, often with a watchful guard to ensure that there was no talking or other contact between me & any of the others. Because we were all on the same block it wasn't easy for the warders to enforce total segregation. The other political prisoners would break through the cordon by shouting across to me or by finding any & every excuse for going past where I was sitting & hurriedly throwing in one or two words of solidarity...This was always touching coming from people who were in no better conditions. ~ Ngugi Wa Thiongo

Simon Greenleaf's Masonic work documents the relationship between defining the Patriarch Enoch as a Pythagorean figure while linking the Druidical priestly presence through Phoenician exploration from Egyptian source. Thus Enoch brought the content of Masonic knowledge to a greater mystical perfection as he was deemed to have caused the emergence of the restoration of learning from the vault into solar Apollonian radiance through the application of Pythagorean learning to the inspiration of the new Republic through mathematics and the laws derived from it. The result was for Greenleaf a pre- critical logic of unfolding of the Logos envisaged by Salem Town along lines delineated in the L'Enfant-Latrobe District of Columbia template from the national capital into districts of Masonic Grand Lodge administration was devolved into districts, paralleling judicial and congressional districts, symbolically as an extension of the Latrobe-L'Enfant template just after the moral and political defeat of Jedidiah Morse and the Federalists in 1800 and theological attacks on Masonry and before the onset of the Morgan fervor in 1826. This period enables the historian to see a sequence of Masonic and mythic legal unfolding from legendary history which linked the emergence of Enochic design to civil religion through monumental architecture which also links the dynamism of a Third Age of Masonic "Aquarian" millennialism rooted in third age eschatology within its Tudor derivative of an articulat ~ Robert W. Sullivan IV

This was not a political party. It was an army. The purpose of the display, Lloyd figured, was to give them false authority. They wanted to look as if they had the right to close meetings and empty buildings, to burst into homes and offices and arrest people, to drag them to jails and camps and beat them up, interrogate and torture them, as the Brownshirts did in Germany under the Nazi regime so admired by Mosley and the Daily Mail's proprietor, ~ Ken Follett

Those who claim to be Marxists cannot confine themselves to condemning or deploring political acts; they have also to explain them. Regrets and wishes may help the people to endure their woes, but they do not help them either to perceive their causes or to struggle to get rid of them or to prevent their reemergence. By explaining the reasons for something that does indeed deserve condemnation from the standpoint of the interests of the working people, we can contribute, however, to causing political forces to evolve in such a way that the "regrettable" events do not recur. ~ Charles Bettelheim

If the blessings of our political and social condition have not been too highly estimated, we cannot well overrate the responsibility and duty which they impose upon us. We hold these institutions of government, religion, and learning, to be transmitted, as well as enjoyed. We are in the line of conveyance, through which whatever has been obtained by the spirit and efforts of our ancestors is to be communicated to our children. ~ Daniel Webster

In my own experience, I have been amazed to see how unrealistic are the bases for political opinion in general. Only rarely have I found a person who has chosen any particular political party - democratic or totalitarian - through study and comparison of principles. ~ Joost Meerloo

I hope the Icelandic government grants me political asylum. ~ Bobby Fischer

In politics, being ridiculous is more damaging than being extreme. ~ Roy Hattersley

What we need is political leadership which can give guidance to the development of global governance. We need business leadership which goes beyond shareholder value to understand the needs and fears of other stakeholders and their communities. ~ Juan Somavia

Any politician who can be elected only by turning Americans against other Americans is too dangerous to be elected. ~ Thomas Sowell

Before we aspire after theoretical perfection in the amelioration of our political state, it is necessary that we possess those advantages which we have been cheated of, and which the experience of modern times has proved that nations even under the present conditions are susceptible. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics, philosophy, and literature than any number of dull arguments. ~ Isaac Asimov

Inner liberty depends upon being exempt from domination of things as well as from domination of people. There are many who have acquired a high degree of political and social liberty, but only very few are not enslaved to things. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel

We're all living blinkered lives, and we're not seeing what's going on and looking to change it. I'm not saying that everyone has to make a political statement, but we need to be more aware of what's happening and why. ~ Samantha Morton

And there is no difference, in principle - but only in degree - between political and chattel slavery. The former, no less than the latter, denies a man's ownership of himself and the products of his labor; and asserts that other men may own him, and dispose of him and his property, for their uses, and at their pleasure. ~ Lysander Spooner

The longer a politician bears power, the more he is controlled by that power. ~ Tom Coburn

I've gotta go," Andy said, turning to me with a frown. "But listen. Fuck this campaign. Do not let them tell you who you are. You're not an idiot. You're amazing, Kate Quinn. I see you." He nodded at my confused expression. "I saw you right away. That stupid press conference, grabbing that stupid microphone. The real you. You're better than all of them. Jesus . . ." He let out a desperate laugh. "You're even nice to vending machines! ~ Jenn Marie Thorne

Politicians and bureaucrats are substituting their uninformed, largely political decisions for those of the marketplace. Their past miscalculations demonstrate that they do not and cannot possess the information, knowledge, means, and discipline to manage the economy. ~ Mark Levin

The more one is aware of political bias the more one can be independent of it & the more one claims to be impartial the more one is biased. ~ George Orwell

It doesn't matter what country or what political system you are from. Space brings you together. ~ Valentina Tereshkova

The philanthropic tradition is older than democracy, older than Christianity, and older than higher education. It gives form and purpose to personal and social life that cannot be provided by the self-interest of economic enterprise or required by the mandate of political institutions. ~ Robert L. Payton

We have over a hundred political detainees, men against whom we are unable to prove anything in a court of law. Nearly 50 of them are men who gave us a great deal of anxiety during the years of Confrontation because they were Malay extremists. Your life and this dinner would not be what it is if my colleagues and I had decided to play it according to the rules of the game. ~ Lee Kuan Yew

Lead generation excels when a campaign is looking to capture a piece of factual intelligence that could never be modelled or predicted through profiling and sophisticated propensity algorithms. ~ Chris Cunningham

The wisdom and spirit of Churchill not only saved Britain from the Third Reich but saved Western civilization from a Nazi Dark Ages when no other nation was willing to take up that defense. Churchill was the greatest military, political and spiritual leader of the 20th century. ~ Victor Davis Hanson

And the state of his bathroom
I'm not one to gossip, but there are things crusted on his sink that have not simply developed intelligent life, but have in all probability by now envolved their own political systems. ~ Neil Gaiman

Every age fraught with discord and danger seems to spawn a leader meant only for that age, a political giant whose absence, in retrospect, seems inconceivable when the history of that age is written. ~ Dan Simmons

The resurrection declared that Jesus was not the ordinary sort of political king, a rebel leader, that some had supposed. He was the leader of a far larger, more radical revolution than anyone had ever supposed. He was inaugurating a whole new world, a new creation, a new way of being human. He was forging a way into a new cosmos, a new era, a form of existence hinted at all along but never before unveiled. ~ N. T. Wright

Open discussion of many major public questions has for some time now been taboo. We can't open our mouths without being denounced as racists, misogynists, supremacists, imperialists or fascists. As for the media, they stand ready to trash anyone so designated. ~ Saul Bellow

A brick could be used as brain filler for the political mind, just in case one of our elected officials needs a brain transplant to try to boost their intellectual capabilities. ~ Jarod Kintz

If the court is a political institution making important political decisions, then the public should debate the politics of Supreme Court decisions. ~ Marvin Ammori

Scholars have endlessly written about antebellum Protestant thinking about slavery. Now, finally, Friends of the Unrighteous Mammon turns a spotlight on a new, crucial question: how did antebellum Protestants parse capitalism? For anyone who seeks to understand the political economy of the antebellum era-or, indeed, the complex entanglement of Christianity and capitalism today-this book is critical. I, for one, am very grateful to Stewart Davenport for having written it. ~ Lauren F. Winner