Quotes About Campaigns

Whatever historical or ideological relevance the Iowa caucus has will more than likely not get you to the White House, but it will probably get you a sweet gig at Fox News.

In 2008, Barack Obama did get Democrats hyperventilating, whipped up to a creamy froth, while John McCain creaked ahead like a cranky granddad whom Republicans let move to the front of the buffet line, deferring to seniority, as they had in 1996, when Bob Dole turtled to the top of the ticket.

Created by writer Beau Willimon, who's worked on several political campaigns, 'House of Cards' cannily exploits the current widespread cynicism for our politics, catering to a public scorn that's warranted and also glib in the sort of cheap pox-on-both-houses way that means not having to pay attention.

Senator McConnell has always won in the past because he's had a bigger blow horn. He's always had tens of millions of dollars more than his opponent.

John McCain has taken tens of millions of dollars from special interests and lobbyists in his senate and presidential campaigns. Now, we have to wonder if he will be able to remain objective on national security matters, as millions pour into his 'charity' from oppressive foreign governments.

It would be a lot cheaper for me not to have to raise tens of millions of dollars to elect progressive candidates who will raise my taxes.

If you create a system that makes the small donors the linchpin of the system in terms of how members of Congress directly raise the funds for their campaigns, then it gives everyday citizens much more of a role - a leveraging role - in the funding of those campaigns.

Downplaying their faults is pretty much the point of campaigns. But we do count on them living with the constant terror of public rejection.

Do you ever get the feeling that the only reason we have elections is to find out if the polls were right?

If politics were a musical, it would be Promises, Promises.

Some campaigns are not worth waging if you can't win; others have to be fought on grounds of principle regardless of the chances for success.

You know, I respect what Howard Dean has been able to do. It's good for our party. But I've got to tell you this: If money alone decided presidential nominations, Phil Gramm would have been nominated in '96.

That's the trouble with a politician's life-somebody is always interrupting it with an election.

What troubles me is not that movie stars run for office, but that they find it easy to get elected. It should be difficult. It should be difficult for millionaires, too.

Modern politics is expensive—power follows money.)

Psychological mapping for political ends is now going to be part of every campaign.

Most elected officials don't want you to know about the world of political fundraising because they fear that it paints an unflattering portrait of public life.

Bloomberg believes his money can buy anything - even the liberty of individual Americans. After all, his personal fortune bought him public office.

I love marketing a lot, and I'm very creative when it comes to developing ideas for shows or publicity campaigns.

I am not sure when it became de rigueur for presidential candidates to publish a work between hard covers, but nobody now runs for high office without having written, or having arranged for the ghostwriting of, a very large book.

For those of you who still believe in the Easter Bunny and that the letters that appear in your local newspaper come from concerned citizens who really care, I've got troubling news. At least in politics, most of the letters that get published on the letters-to-the-editor page originate in the campaign headquarters of the candidates.

It is illegal for foreign entities to buy political ads in the United States. But that didn't stop the purchase of thousands of political ads on Facebook, paid for - in rubles - by foreigners.

The key to fixing public financing is to free politics from big money.

We say there are people who have worked in campaigns who say that they have lost some - and we call those folks operatives, managers, strategists, consultants; and then there are people who work in campaigns and say that they have never lost, and we call them liars.