Presidential Candidate Quotes

Remember, the first presidential candidate to reject public financing for both the primary and general election was ... Barack Obama, in 2008. He did it, in spite of a flat pledge to the contrary, because his campaign saw that it could vastly outspend John McCain. ~ Jeff Greenfield

Anyone who has undergone home repair lately knows that your everyday artisan uses language so loosely and makes false promises so glibly as to make your politicians, even the presidential candidate, seem like a model of accuracy and rectitude. 'Be there Wednesday at nine,' the workman will tell you. It is a lie. He is humoring you. He says it to silence you, the way you tell a child you will take it to Disneyland if it will stop crying. ~ Mary McGrory

The vice presidential candidate tends to be a bit of an afterthought. ~ Mary Cheney

Who can guarantee that he [Alexander Milinkevich, a Belarussian opposition presidential candidate] is the most promising candidate capable of competing with the incumbent president? ~ Alexander Lukashenko

In an interview, former vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan said he does not have a racist bone in his body. However, he admitted he has three sexist bones and his spine is homophobic. ~ Conan O'Brien

Of course you would, Mitt," Reagan said. "Well, I'm glad we understand each other, and I think your father would be proud of you being in his old spot, and I want you to know that when I'm choosing my Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, your resumé will be on the very top of the pile. It's been great chatting with you but you know, I have to find a vice presidential candidate, and soon."

"Ha, ha, ha, ah it's been great chatting with you, too, Mr. President, and - "

Reagan cocked his head slightly, smiled, and caught the eye of a minion; a moment later Romney had been deposited outside the door like a discarded room service tray, having barely had time to shift from ha, ha, ha back to ah…ah… ~ John Barnes

Today, possible presidential candidate Donald Trump released his birth certificate. It lists his eyes as blue and his hair as ridiculous. ~ Conan O'Brien

Remember this presidential candidate can count. ~ Herman Cain

If there were two candidates, a Democrat and a Republican, who each committed to the same kind of fundamental reform, then the election would be an election between the vice presidential candidates. It'd be just like the regular election, except it would be one step down. ~ Lawrence Lessig

President Obama, by the way, has set a Guinness World Record as the fastest person to get a million Twitter followers. Obama now has as many followers as the Republicans have presidential candidates. ~ Conan O'Brien

Barack Obama may be black, but John McCain is the first Albino presidential candidate: he's completely see-through! ~ George Lopez

(Harry Reid) was wowed by Obama's oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama - a 'light-skinned' African American 'with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one. ~ Harry Reid

I wish that in order to secure his party's nomination, a presidential candidate would be required to point at the sky and name all the stars; have the periodic table of the elements memorized; rattle off the kings and queens of Spain; define the significance of the Gatling gun; joke around in Latin; interpret the symbolism in seventeenth-century Dutch painting; explain photosynthesis to a six-year-old; recite Emily Dickenson; bake a perfect popover; build a shortwave radio out of a coconut; and know all the words to Hoagy Carmichael's "Two Sleepy People", Johnny Cash's "Five Feet High and Rising", and "You Got the Silver" by the Rolling Stones ... What we need is a president who is at least twelve kinds of nerd, a nerd messiah to come along every four years, acquire the Secret Service code name Poindexter, install a Revenge of the Nerds screen saver on the Oval Office computer, and one by one decrypt our woes. ~ Sarah Vowell

[When asked, as a prospective Presidential candidate, whether she had ever committed adultery:] No. But then most congresswomen don't have 25-year-old lifeguards throwing themselves at their feet around this place. ~ Patricia Schroeder

It is disingenuous to imply that my father was a Republican. He never endorsed any presidential candidate, and there is certainly no evidence that he ever even voted for a Republican. It is even more outrageous to suggest that he would support the Republican Party of today, which has spent so much time and effort trying to suppress African American votes in Florida and many other states. ~ Martin Luther King III

There's only one thing different about Barack Obama when it comes to being a Democratic presidential candidate. He's half African-American. Whether that will make any difference, I don't know. I haven't heard him have a strong crackdown on economic exploitation in the ghettos. Payday loans, predatory lending, asbestos, lead. What's keeping him from doing that? Is it because he wants to talk white? He doesn't want to appear like Jesse Jackson? We'll see all that play out in the next few months and if he gets elected afterwards. ~ Ralph Nader

During a recent event at a restaurant called Tommy's Country Ham House in South Carolina, presidential candidate Ben Carson delivered a speech right after he lost his front tooth. Which still left him with more teeth than everyone combined at Tommy's Country Ham House. ~ Jimmy Fallon

The "mood of the nation," in 1972, was so overwhelmingly vengeful, greedy, bigoted, and blindly reactionary that no presidential candidate who even faintly reminded "typical voters" of the fear & anxiety they'd felt during the constant "social upheavals" of the 1960s had any chance at all of beating Nixon last year--not even Ted Kennedy--because the pendulum "effect" that began with Nixon's slim victory in '68 was totally irreversible by 1972. After a decade of left-bent chaos, the Silent Majority was so deep in a behavorial sink that their only feeling for politics was a powerful sense of revulsion. All they wanted in the White House was a man who would leave them alone and do anything necessary to bring calmness back into their lives ~ Hunter S. Thompson

In my lifetime, we have lost a President, a Civil Rights leader and a Presidential candidate - all to gun violence. ~ Marianne Williamson

Presidential candidate Howard Dean is now being attacked for dodging the draft. I never knew this about the guy - but now I know this guy is presidential material. ~ David Letterman

Imagine that you are agonizing over a choice - which career to pursue, whether to get married, how to vote, what to wear that day. You have finally staggered to a decision when the phone rings. It is the identical twin you never knew you had. During the joyous conversation it comes out that she has just chosen a similar career, has decided to get married at around the same time, plans to cast her vote for the same presidential candidate, and is wearing a shirt of the same color - just as the behavioral geneticists who tracked you down would have bet. How much discretion did the "you" making the choices actually have if the outcome could have been predicted in advance, at least probabilistically, based on events that took place in your mother's Fallopian tubes decades ago? ~ Steven Pinker

That July, on a flight to the Republican convention in Detroit which nominated him as the party's presidential candidate, Ronald Reagan had chatted with his political guru, Stuart Spencer: 'Spencer asked the question all political pros learn to ask their candidates early on. "Why are you doing this, Ron? Why do you want to be President?" Without a moment's hesitation Reagan answered, "To end the Cold War. ~ Charles Moore

When the Founding Fathers arrived here in Philadelphia to forge a new nation, they didn't come as Democrats or Republicans or to nominate a presidential candidate. They came as patriots who feared party politics. ~ Michael Bloomberg

It is true that all of the current presidential candidates once denied that they had any intention of running. But the fact that I am also a liar, doesn't make me a candidate. ~ Pat Paulsen

The removal of the Indians was explained by Lewis Cass - Secretary of War, governor of the Michigan territory, minister to France, presidential candidate: A principle of progressive improvement seems almost inherent in human nature ... We are all striving in the career of life to acquire riches of honor, or power, or some other object, whose possession is to realize the day dreams of our imaginations; and the aggregate of these efforts constitutes the advance of society. But there is little of this in the constitution of our savages. ~ Howard Zinn

As Barry Commoner, US biologist and 1980 presidential candidate, formulated it in his Four Laws of Ecology:
Everything is connected to everything else.
Everything must go somewhere.
Nature knows best.
There is no such thing as a free lunch. ~ Kennedy Warne

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry came down pretty hard on fellow candidate Howard Dean this weekend. After Dean misspoke several times, Kerry said you can't misspeak 15 times in a week and be president. And Bush said, 'You can't'? ~ Jay Leno

And what happened? Fact-checked, focus-grouped, data-driven Clinton lost to the most deranged presidential candidate ever: a clown, a fraud, a sexual predator, an inveterate liar who has faked every single thing he's ever done - a giant cube of flesh who embodies all our vilest instincts and our ludicrous celebrity culture. She lost - the Democrats lost, the liberals lost - to him. ~ Chapo Trap House

Here's what presidential candidate Mitt Romney said about Barack Obama: Barack Obama is not a very good President. He said Barack Obama doesn't do a very good job on the economy; he said that Obama's foreign policy has a lot of holes in it; he said Obama has done a pretty poor job across the board of working in bipartisan fashion. But, Romney added, Obama's a good guy. He's a good family man, a good husband, a man who believes in the basic principles espoused by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. He is not someone you should be afraid of in any way. Essentially, Romney's campaign slogan was this: "Obama: Good Guy, Bad President. ~ Ben Shapiro

I believe Sarah Palin is a true statesman, whose experience as a failed vice presidential candidate, half-term governor and eight-episode reality star has fully prepared her to take control of our nuclear arsenal. ~ Stephen Colbert

I don't know if the presidential candidates are running for the White House or Animal House. ~ Bob Hope

Was Sen. Barack Obama a Muslim? Did he ever practice Islam? The presidential candidate officially rejects the claims, but the issue of Obama's personal faith has re-emerged amid conflicting accounts of his enrollment as a Muslim during elementary school in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation. ~ Aaron Klein

Every presidential candidate highlights patriotism, but Mr. Romney's is backed by the Mormon belief that the United States was chosen by God to play a special role in history, its Constitution divinely inspired. ~ Jodi Kantor

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has taken American politics by storm. ~ Sean Hannity

One hundred thirty years after Abe Lincoln, re Republicans have got the anti-black vote and it's bigger than any Democratic Presidential candidate can cope with. ~ John Updike

Everyone knows the presidential candidates and has an opinion about them. But as you get to smaller races, that evaporates and you can win through sheer elbow grease. ~ Joe Green

You can't be what you can't see, so it's harder for women to say, "I'm going to be a [presidential] candidate," so we need to go to women who would be good candidates and say, "You would be a good candidate and I'll help you." It's not a passive question, it's not when will it happen, but an active question, when will we make it happen? ~ Gloria Steinem

In 1800, in the first interparty contest, the Federalists warned that presidential candidate Thomas Jefferson, because of his sympathy expressed at the outset of the French Revolution, was 'the son of a half-breed Indian squaw' who would put opponents under the guillotine. ~ Robert Dallek

It seems likely MK-Ultra or a Manchurian Candidate, or possibly both, may have been involved in the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, the US Presidential candidate most political analysts agree would have been elected President had he lived. ~ James Morcan

I heard one presidential candidate say that what this country needed was a president for the nineties. I was set to run again. I thought he said a president IN his nineties. ~ Ronald Reagan

On a pure entertainment level, if I'm going to choose to listen to a presidential candidate speak on a Saturday night, it's going to be Donald Trump over Bernie Sanders by a landslide! ~ Jerrod Carmichael

A presidential candidate who appeared not to understand or respect the parameters of responsible foreign policy conduct would not get the political support necessary to win the office. ~ Michael Mandelbaum

In a new poll of Democratic voters, presidential candidate Lincoln Chafee came in with zero percent support. Or in other words: We're all tied with presidential candidate Lincoln Chafee. ~ Jimmy Fallon

Aside from Donald Trump, polls find [Hillary] Clinton to be the least-liked presidential candidate in recent history. ~ Tamara Keith

don't think we can handle another apology," Stewart went on, throwing down the magazine. "Because let me tell you, I know what an apology from this governor sounds like, and it ain't really an apology. It's more like - ." He paused. Someone said, "More like what?" "I'll just put it this way. His apologies tend to have an unapologetic tone." Another minute passed, and then the governor walked in. All went silent. He sat in the only remaining chair and made jokes with one of the interns. A week before, he had been openly talked about by influential commentators in New York and Washington as a presidential candidate. In national media reports, his name had been routinely used in conjunction with the terms "principled stand," "courageous," "crazy, ~ Barton Swaim

Everybody loved me running for president in '91 and '92 because they never knew a presidential candidate before. ~ Eileen Myles

No presidential candidate should visit Las Vegas without condemning organized gambling. ~ Ralph Nader

In 1856 the Know-Nothings even ran a former president, Millard Fillmore, as their presidential candidate. "Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid", observed Abraham Lincoln. "As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal'. We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except Negroes'. When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except Negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics'". ~ Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

One of Lincoln's intimates as a presidential candidate urged him to make no promises and not to part with those kind words which could be interpreted as promises. ~ Harold Holzer

Political discourse has become so rotten that it's no longer possible to tell the stench of one presidential candidate from the stink of another. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

As a presidential candidate, Mr. Trump is going to get tough questions from the press and has to answer them. ~ Randy Falco

It's no surprise I am addicted to all the Republican presidential candidates. They are like crack
in that they will devastate black communities. ~ Stephen Colbert

Presidential candidate Donald Trump had a meeting with Ted Cruz. He said he does not know why he agreed to fly to New York to meet Ted Cruz and then he promised to bring that kind of leadership to the Oval Office. ~ Conan O'Brien

After starting a blood feud with Fox News, something no Republican presidential candidate has dared to do before, [Donald] Trump seems to have successfully undermine the network in the eyes of its core audience with perception of the Fox News brand among Republican adults hitting its lowest point in three years according to a new YouGov survey. ~ Chris Hayes

In the end, Buchanan was one of the paleocons to back Trump and many of those who formerly loathed most of what Yiannopoulos and what he represented decided to change their minds and back the winning horse, not only of Trump, but also of the new libertines of the online irreverent 'punk' right. Having lost Buchannan's conservative culture war, they were perhaps strategically right to calculate that the only way they can ever have at least some of their ideas heard again would be to back a groping, lecherous, godless presidential candidate and a libertine figure such as Yiannopoulos and his army of online racist, foul-mouthed, porn-loving nihilists, who in many ways represent everything people like Buchannan are supposed to stand against. The rise of Milo, Trump and the alt-right are not evidence of the return of the conservatism, but instead of the absolute hegemony of the culture of non-conformism, self-expression, transgression and irreverence for its own sake – an aesthetic that suits those who believe in nothing but the liberation of the individual and the id, whether they're on the left or the right. The principle-free idea of counterculture did not go away; it has just become the style of the new right. ~ Angela Nagle

Tonight the Republican presidential candidates had a big debate, 10 candidates. The last time that many rich white guys got together, I think Exxon merged with Mobil. ~ Jay Leno

Every now and then, a presidential candidate surprises us with a truly human and honest moment. ~ Ron Fournier

New Republican Presidential candidate Jon Huntsman is fluent in Chinese. In a short period of time the Republicans have come quite a long way. The last Republican president wasn't even fluent in English. ~ David Letterman

As we march toward the reality that, by 2050, no one racial or ethnic group will hold a proportional majority in this country, racial suicide paranoia abounds. And for the white racist legislators in the red states, nothing is more threatening than a majority-brown country; it strips them of their historic power. The prospect of being outnumbered is what enabled the Tea Party's mutiny of Congress in 2010 after the election of Barack Obama, America's first black president, allowing it to cripple the Republican establishment; render the first major-party female presidential candidate powerless; and enable the rise of the racist, nationalistic, and misogynistic Donald Trump The white people who are still in charge believe that if their women don't start having lots of babies they- the white patriarchs - are going to become obsolete. ~ Dr. Willie Parker

Every election, a presidential candidate inevitably proposes a new cabinet agency. The idea is that this is the only way to solve a particular problem. Just create more government. ~ Christopher Buckley

The first and most essential quality of a presidential candidate, as Averell Harriman once pointed out, is that he should lust for the job - he should want it more than all things, with a passion surpassing all emotion and probably even all principle. ~ Theodore H. White

In a new issue of Esquire magazine, they revealed that before he was married to Teresa Heinz, Senator John Kerry dated Morgan Fairchild, Michelle Phillips, Catherine Oxenberg and Dana Delany. Finally a Democratic presidential candidate with good taste in women. ~ Jay Leno

The Boston Globe is reporting that Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry used to date actress Morgan Fairchild but it didn't work out. Apparently she couldn't handle dating someone with bigger hair then she had. ~ Jay Leno

I'm not sure Lincoln would fare well if he were a presidential candidate today. ~ David Herbert Donald

As a registered Democrat, I am praying for a credible presidential candidate to emerge from the younger tier of politicians in their late 40s. A governor with executive experience would be ideal. ~ Camille Paglia

No Republican presidential candidate is a viable option for pro-choice voters of any political philosophy - Democrat, Republican or otherwise. ~ Christine Pelosi

When you have a 12-minute debate over whether lipstick on a pig refers to a demeaning comment about the vice presidential candidate, you know we're not talking about health reform, we're not talking about energy policy, we're not talking about balancing the budget. And you know, it's fairly stupid. ~ Newt Gingrich

I know he isn't a serious candidate for anything long-term. Or even medium-term. But maybe that's precisely why he's so attractive to me, right now. Unsuitable is good. Temporary is good ... ~ Catherine Sanderson

I also do not like the idea of soft money, these issue ads - people don't know where the money is coming from, millions and millions of dollars outside of the control of a candidate - there's no accountability. ~ Scott McCallum

Just as I went into politics because Joe died, if anything happened to me tomorrow, my brother Bobby would run for my seat in the Senate. And if Bobby died, Teddy would take over for him. ~ John F. Kennedy

I think I'd be a prime candidate for canonisation. ~ Morrissey

Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign announced that it raised over $1.5 million in the 24 hours after he announced his bid. Meanwhile, a 12-year-old on Kickstarter just raised $7 million in five minutes after announcing his idea for juice box water guns. ~ Jimmy Fallon

I work really long hours and work a lot and have done press tours and junkets, but there is nothing like a presidential campaign that I have experienced before ... I think at one point we visited three different cities in one state in 12 hours. It's exhausting. ~ America Ferrera

Not everything in life is so black and white, but the authenticity of the Book of Mormon and its keystone role in our religion seem to be exactly that. Either Joseph Smith was the prophet he said he was, a prophet who, after seeing the Father and the Son, later beheld the angel Moroni, repeatedly heard counsel from Moroni's lips, and eventually received at his hands a set of ancient gold plates that he then translated by the gift and power of God, or else he did not. And if he did not, he would not be entitled to the reputation of New England folk hero or well-meaning young man or writer of remarkable fiction. No, nor would he be entitled to be considered a great teacher, a quintessential American religious leader, or the creator of great devotional literature. If he had lied about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, he would certainly be none of these...

If Joseph Smith did not translate the Book of Mormon as a work of ancient origin, then I would move heaven and earth to meet the "real" nineteenth-century author. After one hundred and fifty years, no one can come up with a credible alternative candidate, but if the book were false, surely there must be someone willing to step forward-if no one else, at least the descendants of the "real" author-claiming credit for such a remarkable document and all that has transpired in its wake. After all, a writer that can move millions can make millions. Shouldn't someone have come forth then or now to cashier the whole p ~ Jeffrey R. Holland

I've long thought that Marco Rubio would make a strong G.O.P. candidate for president. While he was brought into office by surfing on the Tea Party wave, he has proven himself not to be wedded to the frequent lunacy of those folks. ~ Kurt Eichenwald

We have the most religious freedom of any country in the world, including the freedom not to believe. ~ William J. Clinton

Get every candidate to wear a NASCAR racing suit when they go debate; this way we can see how their sponsors really are. ~ Jesse Ventura

Throughout this primary process the voters have vetted each candidate and after a spirited contest they have made clear who they believe is right person to lead our ticket and that is Governor Mitt Romney. I believe they have come to this conclusion because they know that Governor Romney will begin working on day one to turn around our economy. ~ Candice S. Miller

Super PACs and a corrupt campaign finance system are destroying American democracy. We're proud that we have received four million individual contributions, more than any candidate in American history at this point. ~ Bernie Sanders

I want to lead the Progressive Conservative Party, a party that will promote true conservative values and principles. I can tell you right now, I am not the merger candidate. I am not interested in institutional marriages with other parties. ~ Peter MacKay

First of all, no candidate is going to win by catering to the alleged Occupy Wall Street vote. ~ Jim DeMint

May God save the country, for it is evident that the people will not. ~ Millard Fillmore

The President was trapped – and with nearly every president, it had come about from his own words. Presidential promises and statements… The people had this annoying way of remembering them. And even if they didn't, there were journalists and political rivals never passed on a chance to make the necessary reminders. ~ Tom Clancy

Our government should be entirely and purely secular. The religious views of a candidate should be kept entirely out of sight. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll

Hire great writers If you are trying to decide among a few people to fill a position, hire the best writer. It doesn't matter if that person is a marketer, salesperson, designer, programmer, or whatever; their writing skills will pay off. That's because being a good writer is about more than writing. Clear writing is a sign of clear thinking. Great writers know how to communicate. They make things easy to understand. They can put themselves in someone else's shoes. They know what to omit. And those are qualities you want in any candidate. ~ Jason Fried

There is nothing left to do but get drunk. ~ Franklin Pierce

In the history of science we have discovered a sequence of better and better theories or models, from Plato to the classical theory of Newton to modern quantum theories. It is natural to ask: Will this sequence eventually reach an end point, an ultimate theory of the universe, that will include all forces and predict every observation we can make, or will we continue forever finding better theories, but never one that cannot be improved upon? We do not yet have a definitive answer to this question, but we now have a candidate for the ultimate theory of everything, if indeed one exists, called M-theory. M-theory is the only model that has all the properties we think the final theory ought to have, and it is the theory upon which much of our later discussion is based.
M-theory is not a theory in the usual sense. It is a whole family of different theories, each of which is a good description of observations only in some range of physical situations. ~ Stephen Hawking

I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been solicited by my friends to become a candidate for the Legislature. My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman's dance. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Democracy is being allowed to vote for the candidate you dislike least. ~ Robert Byrne

I think that women just have a primeval instinct to make soup, which they will try to foist on anybody who looks like a likely candidate. ~ Dylan Moran

The weak economy, widening income inequality, gridlock in Congress and a presidential election: Those were perhaps the dominant economic and political themes of 2012. ~ Steven Rattner

Election night had turned into an occasion to celebrate or to drown sorrows. Regardless of the outcome, there was an excuse to party, to drink, and to curse the other side, that terrible separate half of society who were too stupid to see things the 'right' way. It seemed odd to Adam that most elections were evenly split. Forty percent of the votes were usually for the most pro-business candidate, who somehow convinced another ten percent or so of the voting public to go along with him or her, either through a barrage of false ads or by paying the media for positive coverage. ~ Dan Marshall

The fundamental question pertaining to voting ethics which Christians must ask at this presidential election is this: "What are the binding principles established by God in the Bible for selecting a civil magistrate?" All other questions are secondary or irrelevant. Once this standard is determined it is our duty to wisely apply the principles and precepts to our American context and to obey. All attempts by Christians to obfuscate our duty to repair to "the standard" by sprinkling the debate with the theology of pragmatics and partisan politics is a loss to the Church because it means that we are more concerned with manipulating a political process then simply obeying the sovereign God ~ Douglas W. Phillips

We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles. ~ Jimmy Carter

If you were to tell the thing down at the bottom of that pit it had napped through forty-two presidential inaugurations, eight British coronations, sixteen popes and three number ones by the Danish pop group, Aqua, it would have told you to stop talking nonsense and shut the fuck up. It had slept, somewhat peacefully, through Emmet's Insurrection, World War I and II, Vietnam, and even the Great War of Blur Vs. Oasis. ~ Adam Millard

Manchurian Candidate work was done under MKULTRA Subproject 136, which was approved for funding on August 23, 1961. ~ Colin A. Ross

A decent and manly examination of the acts of government should not only be tolerated, but encouraged. ~ William Henry Harrison

If you want a candidate who agrees with you 100 percent of the time, I'll give you a suggestion: Go home and look in the mirror. You are the only person you agree with 100 percent of the time ... You'll always know who I am, you'll always know what I believe and you'll always know where I stand. ~ Chris Christie

As much as I cherish your [McCarthy's] right to a platform as an independent candidate I am not going to sit here quietly and listen to you denigrate the two party system. It has served our country well over the last two hundred years. ~ John Anderson

May our country be always successful, but whether successful or otherwise, always right. ~ John Quincy Adams