Quotes About Elections

Don't worry, Malcolm," President Obama told his Australian counterpart, Malcolm Turnbull, when the latter expressed concern to him about Trump's early GOP primary successes. "The American people will never elect a lunatic to sit in this office.

The framers of our Constitution arranged things so that political action would have to be filtered through institutions that require consultation and compromise, and would depend on a system of frequent elections, checks and balances, the autonomy of the civil service, civilian control of the military, the writing of laws and regulations, and their impartial enforcement. And all this would have to be done at three levels of government.

Liberals bring many things to electoral contests: values, commitment, policy proposals. What they don't bring is an image of what our shared way of life might be. Ever since the election of Ronald Reagan the American right has offered one. And it is this image—not money, not false advertising, not fearmongering, not racism—that has been the ultimate source of its strength. In the contest for the American imagination, liberals have abdicated.

But in a democracy the only way to meaningfully defend them—and not just make empty gestures of recognition and "celebration"—is to win elections and exercise power in the long run, at every level of government. And the only way to accomplish that is to have a message that appeals to as many people as possible and pulls them together. Identity liberalism does just the opposite.

Even now, with the expectation that a substantial percentage of newly naturalized aliens would vote for the Democratic Party's 2016 nominee for president, the Department of Homeland Security's Task Force on New Americans is reportedly focusing resources on urging 9 million green card holders (aliens and noncitizens) to become naturalized American citizens as quickly as possible, in hopes of influencing the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.65

Paradoxically, as the utopia metastasizes and the society ossifies, elections become less relevant. More and more decisions are made by masterminds and their experts, who substitute their self-serving and dogmatic judgments—which are proclaimed righteous and compassionate—for the individual's self-interests and best interests.

The Colorado secretary of state testified before Congress in 2011 that a check of voter registration rolls against state [Division of Motor Vehicles] records indicated that more than 11,000 Colorado registered voters may not be U.S. citizens—and more than 5,000 of them voted."54

From 1836 to 1868, only one candidate was elected to the presidency more than once—Abraham Lincoln.

During the 25 elections between 1850 and 1898 . . . turnover averaged 50.2 percent. On average, more than half the House during any given session in the second half of the nineteenth century was made up of first term members.

Thank God Donald Trump would never be in the White House.

I figured out Karl Rove's political strategy -- make gas so expensive, no Democrats can afford to go to the polls.

I voted for Ralph Nader in 2000, but I will not make that mistake again. The joke is over for Nader. He was funny once, but now he belongs to the dead.

They say the crazies come out at night. I say the crazies come out during election year: Elections have the power to turn once seemingly normal people into certified loonies.

A statesman is he who thinks in the future generations, and a politician is he who thinks in the upcoming elections.

The future of this republic is in the hands of the American voter.

I have a dreadful feeling in my bones that future historians may write of the May 2014 elections: "This was the wake-up call from which Europe failed to wake up."

Elections are about the future. And the GOP will not win a campaign focused on the past.

The goal in the end is not to win elections. The goal is to change society.

If the gods had intended for people to vote, they would have given us candidates

The word 'politics' is derived from the word 'poly', meaning 'many', and the word 'ticks', meaning 'blood sucking parasites'.

Anthony, do you want a police force or a campaign ad?

In fact, the modern word 'candidate' derives from the Latin candidatus, which means 'whitened' and refers to the specially whitened togas that Romans wore during election campaigns, to impress the voters.

Are Members of Parliament, for example, to be seen as delegates of the voters, bound to follow the will of their electorate? Or are they representatives, elected to exercise their own judgement in the changing circumstances of government?

The first qualification for most political offices was wealth on a substantial scale. No one could stand for election without passing a financial test that excluded most citizens; the exact amount needed to qualify is not known, but the implications are that it was set at the very top level of the census hierarchy, the so-called cavalry or equestrian rating. When the people came together to vote, the system of voting was stacked in favour of the wealthy.