Quotes About Primaries

Even before the missteps that I've had, I was never going to run for office. My family is adamantly opposed to it, and frankly, my politics don't necessarily work for the primaries of either of our parties.

Typically, the view of party leaders is that primaries are best avoided. Better to coalesce around a consensus candidate early, help that candidate amass a mighty bankroll, and focus the attention of volunteers, activists and other stakeholders on the general election.

In 2008, I was one of the young feminist whippersnappers who voted for Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries - or as many of my older counterparts called me at the time, a traitor.

Well, the tough thing for them is that the Republican primary is pretty far over to the right, just as the Democratic primary is further over to the left than the average voter in each party.

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.

I have made it my practice to not get involved in primaries because picking the Republican candidate is the voters' job.

A lot of people criticize the primaries, but I think they are absolutely essential to the education of the President of the United States.

The RNC, per our bylaws, cannot engage in primaries. That is not our role. We actually have a rule that prohibits us from picking a candidate in the primaries.

Congressional dysfunction is the logical result of closed primaries, too many gerrymandered one-party seats, and low-turnout elections.

Primaries are the place where you see whose message is connecting with the largest number of people.

First there was the New Hampshire primary, and we had nearly a year leading up to it. And now, look! Three primaries in one weekend! How many of these things are they going to have?

The first-in-the-nation Iowa caucus is crucial for every presidential campaign.

There are not very many people who go out and vote in primaries. So to get elected in a particular district, you have to appeal to the five people who vote in the primary.

During the protracted tooth-and-nail tussle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primaries, I was one of those fierce partisans desperate for the first black candidate with a serious shot at the White House to win the nomination.

Primaries are a family fight. I'm a pro-free enterprise, pro-Second Amendment, pro-life Republican.

The Republican Party needs to, first of all, quit electing people in primaries that have prehistoric notions about women's issues.

To win the nomination, you speak to people who vote in Republican primaries. And they tend not to be millennials or minorities... When I win the nomination and show up at a black church, they say, 'Where have you been Mr. Romney?'

Despite what the pundits want us to think, contested primaries aren't civil war, they are democracy at work, and that's beautiful.

I recognize primaries are difficult things. We had a field of outstanding candidates. And primaries get a little bit rough. And it takes some time for people to get beyond those things.

It's logical and fair to allow only registered or self-identified Democrats to choose their party's nominee (although numerous states do have open primaries). Letting more non-Democrats choose the nominee doesn't guarantee success in a November general election. And it does nothing to encourage people to join and work for the party.

Whatever the degree of your knowledge, these two—existence and consciousness—are axioms you cannot escape, these two are the irreducible primaries implied in any action you undertake, in any part of your knowledge and in its sum, from the first ray of light you perceive at the start of your life to the widest erudition you might acquire at its end.

There are not enough purple states. No one votes in primaries, except the most ideological. And big money comes in to support or oppose the candidates in those primaries.

When I was writing about the Republican primaries, it was as though the Bible was a black box that people reached into to pull out edicts and prejudices and rules and opinions, and I wish they had fact-checked it! Especially Rick Santorum.

I don't really think it's appropriate for me to be picking and choosing in the primaries. It's pretty dumb politics for a Republican to choose between Republicans in a contested primary because obviously you're going to be offending some people.