“Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.”
Politics affects everything, whether you pay attention to it or not. These quotes cover power, democracy, partisanship, idealism, corruption, and the exhausting but essential work of trying to govern millions of people who disagree about nearly everything.
“It would be great if politics were fact-based, but it is not, and it is surely not nuance-based. What works in a classroom or a think tank does not work on Capitol Hill or in the White House. Obama sometimes seems to be running the Brookings Institution, not the country.”
“Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.”
“I get asked a lot about getting into politics. I say, 'Take a look at politics. You tell me what seems appealing about that.'”
“In politics the middle way is none at all.”
“Skip the religion and politics, head straight to the compassion. Everything else is a distraction.”
“I played by the rules of politics as I found them.”
“This has always been the way of presidential politics. The president rises above the fray while his surrogates go on the attack. They throw the spears and fling the mud he sits upon the throne.”
“Ferdinand was a gold trader. He was a lawyer for mining companies. When he entered politics in l949, he had tons and tons of gold. When Bill Gates was a college dropout, Ferdinand already possessed billions of dollars and tons of gold. It wasn't stolen.”
“First of all, I think it's odd that people who cover politics wouldn't have any political views.”
“Things happen in American politics in the political center. If the President will meet us in the center, there are things we can accomplish.”
“We are naive and moralistic women. We are human beings who find politics a blight upon the human condition. And do not know how one copes with it except through politics.”
“The most important political office is that of the private citizen.”
“Anything's possible in politics.”
“We need to remember that politics is all about people, not programs. We shouldn't want to take the humanness out of the political arena.”
“Of course there are regrets. I shall regret always that I found my own authentic voice in politics. I was too conservative, too conventional. Too safe, too often. Too defensive. Too reactive. Later, too often on the back foot.”
“If acknowledging that racial misgivings and misunderstandings are still a part of politics and life in America, I plead guilty.”