Quotes About Presidency

The presidency which under Lincoln had been a tool of transformation had become, under Johnson, a refuge from modernity.

For thirty-six of the forty years between 1800 and 1840, either Jefferson or a self-described adherent of his served as president of the United States: James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, and Martin Van Buren.32 (John Quincy Adams, a one-term president, was the single exception.)

If the President's theory is carried to its ultimate conclusion," Senator Pat Harrison, Democrat of Mississippi, remarked, "then that means that the black man can strive to become President of the United States.

Watergate is a shabby, tawdry business that demeans the Presidency. Am I failing to lead by not stating that?

image of the kind of nation that TR, before, during, and after his presidency, sought to sustain: one in which America was welcoming to certain groups if those groups put away their cultures of origin.

In a twenty-first-century hour when the presidency has more in common with reality television or professional wrestling, it's useful to recall how the most consequential of our past presidents have unified and inspired with conscious dignity and conscientious efficiency.

He is the representative of no constituency, but of the whole people. When he speaks in his true character, he speaks for no special interest. If he rightly interpret the national thought and boldly insist upon it, he is irresistible; and the country never feels the zest of action so much as when its President is of such insight and caliber.

John Kennedy's death had changed everything. "Now I represent the whole country, and I can do what the whole country thinks is right," Johnson said. "Or ought to.

After the deep recession of 1981–82, the country had had several good years under the Reagan presidency. (Though at a price: The federal debt—or accumulated deficits—had tripled from fiscal 1980 to fiscal 1989.) Beginning in 1989, the economy grew at below-typical rates.

Franklin D. Roosevelt observed during the 1932 campaign, "The Presidency is not merely an administrative office. That's the least of it. It is more than an engineering job, efficient or inefficient. It is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership. All our great Presidents were leaders of thought at times when certain historic ideas in the life of the nation had to be clarified.

After his own presidency, Adams observed, "The people…ought to consider the President's office as the indispensable guardian of their rights," adding: "The people cannot be too careful in the choice of their Presidents.

Nothing makes a man come to grips more directly with his conscience than the Presidency….The burden of his responsibility literally opens up his soul. No longer can he accept matters as given; no longer can he write off hopes and needs as impossible. —LYNDON B. JOHNSON

It has been eleven days, Stephen, eleven fucking days! Eleven! The presidency is supposed to age the president, not the public.

The best reason I can think of for not running for President of the United States is that you have to shave twice a day.

In the long history of the Congress, a really serious contest for presidency was first fought between Subhas Chandra Bose and Pattabhi Sitaramayya in 1939.

I was Al Gore's campaign chairman in 2000, when he won a half-million more votes than George W. Bush but lost the presidency.

Hillary Clinton could say she was a woman and running for president. And Sarah Palin could say she was a woman and running for vice-president. But Obama couldn't say, 'I'm black and I'm running for president.' It couldn't come out of his mouth. He couldn't say that because, if he did, he'd lose votes.

Well, it seems to me Lincoln, I suppose, is kind of a model of a particular sort of presidency, a presidency that first of all is elected by a minority of the votes.

Election victories increasingly depend on factors other than who votes, or tries to vote, and for whom. In 2000, the presidency was awarded by the Supreme Court, pre-empting the count of thousands of Florida votes.

Wouldn't it be something if Liberty's votes were enough to change which presidential candidate won Virginia and maybe even the presidency itself?

Concealing one's true medical condition from the voting public is a time-honored tradition of the American presidency.

Mr. Obama said that he personally told Mr. Putin to knock it off and vows to retaliate. But the Obama presidency is coming to an end, and his successor still won't accept that Russia is guilty of tampering with U.S. elections.

Lincoln said you cannot be President without spending some item on your knees. I have repeated that and a bunch of Atheists got all over me. Wait a minute. Does that mean that you cannot be President if you are an Atheist? I say yea that does mean that.

Normal people don't just wake up in the morning and say I think it'd be a good idea to run for president of the United States.