Quotes About Campaigns

The campaigns of Steve Forbes, Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot, and John McCain all outperformed expectations on their support from independent voters. They made no effort to shy away from ideology, but conveyed to voters that their policies were driven by principle, not party talking points.

If a candidate for office starts talking about thinning the deer population or investing in barriers to reduce the number of deer on the highways, the other side will probably just ignore him, because they're not going to know what to say about it. But there is a chance that the issue will resonate with voters in an unexpected way.

As the 2012 elections approach the finish line, the chatter among columnists and political reporters is about upcoming books that take readers inside the campaigns, cutting-edge efforts to micro-target voters on Internet social applications, the enormous money flowing through super-PACs, and extreme political polarization.

Donors, like voters, increasingly expect candidates to exercise fiscal discipline.

Donors don't win elections; voters win elections.

I think good campaigns generally, but I think particularly presidential campaigns, they're about the voters, and they're about the future. And I think it's hard to be a successful candidate who talks about the future who isn't hopeful, who isn't optimistic, and doesn't offer a vision, right?

What I have learned over hundreds of campaigns is if you have lost voters who have supported you in the past, you can get them back. If you never had them, it is a very difficult sell.

Microtargeting, as its name implies, is a way to identify small but crucial groups of voters who might be won over to a given side, and which messages would do the trick.

Bringing climate change to the forefront of American politics means making politicians feel the heat - in their campaign coffers and at the polls - and it's time we voters make a change.

We fail to continue to talk to, to court, to engage our voters. And then we look up and expect our nominees to look up and go from 0 to 100 in a matter of two months to try to secure a victory.

I think, at the end of the day, if voters don't see the substance and the merit of the policies you're advocating, it won't matter what you do on social media.

Pre-poll and exit polls have now become a commercial proposition. No longer are they viewed as means for a debate or means for enriching the voters and improving the quality of political campaigns. They have become yet another way of manipulation.

There's always that tension between policy and personality in politics, and as voters, we have that, too: we all vote on issues, but we also vote on whether we like the people who are put forward.

I think all nonpresidential elections are won or lost by motivating your own voters.

Campaigns and elections are the process in which democracy separates the willing from the able, and goes with the willing.

If the posters and the campaigns and demonstrations were a guide, any injustice in the world seemed to be theirs to claim, accompanied by frivolities that were like a celebration of disorder. They were fortunate people who desired to own even the suffering of others.

The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal - that you can gather votes like box tops - is... the ultimate indignity to the democratic process.

Most of my promos are straight out of Pat Buchanan's run for election.

Election time is when you start to hear about 'average people,' 'working families,' 'patriotic Americans' and such.

We don't want someone who will get 98 percent of the vote. We want someone who will get 51 percent of the vote.

I've been through several of his campaigns, and I can tell you nobody can out-campaign Rick Perry.

For almost 20 years, I've worked on various campaigns. I started out as a phone volunteer. I'd go into campaign offices, ask for lists of Native American voters, and just start calling people because I felt that I just wanted to help more Native folks get to the polls.

If voters think Donald Trump is rough around the edges, wait until they really start hearing from Chris Christie.

The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal - that you can gather votes like box tops - is, I think, the ultimate indignity to the democratic process.