Jeff Greenfield Quotes

Why couldn't Obama have picked somebody respectable as his running mate, you know, like John Kerry did?

When you're the presidential nominee you get to pick whomever you choose to be on the ticket, and that person gets to say yes or no because, obviously, it's a very important decision.

I would be remiss if I didn't praise Hillary for her excellent judgment in selecting my friend and fellow Virginian, Tim Kaine, to be the next Vice President of the United States!

And I think more of a concern has been not within the campaign, the mistakes that were made, not being able to react to the circumstances that those mistakes created in a real positive and professional and helpful way for John McCain.

Originally, the main purpose of the convention was to determine who the party would have as the presidential nominee and the vice-presidential nominee.

Common wisdom dictates that the vice president should provide balance to the ticket by representing a different part of the country, another set of experiences, or a basketful of electoral votes.

The vice presidential candidate does not usually make much difference at the polls. But that may be changing as voters become more aware that the understudy must be ready to take over if needed.

Romney-Ryan is likely the best matched 'team' that has been on a national ticket in a very long time.

... as long as there is no chance of my being elected Vice President.

It only takes one vote to win the Vice Presidential nomination.

A year ago, my approval rating was in the 30s, my nominee for the supreme court had just withdrawn, and my vice president had shot someone. Ah, those were the good old days.

Nature has her language, and she is not unveracious; but we don't know all the intricacies of her syntax just yet, and in a hasty reading we may happen to extract the very opposite of her real meaning.

Worked hard on [our message of strengthening the middle class, working people], but it didn't come through in places like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania.It really should have, because people are struggling. And the Democratic message and the Democratic platform would help them, but somehow it didn't come up the way it should have. But it will.

Fascist is not just an epithet. Fascist is a proper noun that means a specific thing. It's a real thing. It's not always referring to ancient history.

I go back to the reading room, where I sink down in the sofa and into the world of The Arabian Nights. Slowly, like a movie fadeout, the real world evaporates. I'm alone, inside the world of the story. My favourite feeling in the world.

Maybe television causes cancer, Garp thinks; but his real irritation is a writer's irritation: he knows that wherever the TV glows, there sits someone who isn't reading.

I think reading intelligent expressions of different points of view is a good thing, and there is a way in which being in academia in a classroom at the University probably gives you, can give you an academic view of things, and reading actual real time debates about what should we do in Syria or the Buffett rule, budget issues...gives you a kind of sense that's hard to get in a classroom.

Mother used to say escape is never further than the nearest book. Well, Mumsy, no, not really. Your beloved large-print sagas of rags, riches, and heartbreak were no camouflage against the miseries trained on you by the tennis ball launcher of life, were they? But, yes, Mum, there again, you have a point. Books don’t offer real escape, but they can stop a mind scratching itself raw.

Unhappy voters thought the anemic economy, Obamacare, the collapse of U.S. foreign policy, the scandals in government, and the incompetent handling of everything from the Islamic State to Ebola were the only real issues. Democrats'€™ refusal to acknowledge them did not make these failures go away.

I respect journalism. I was always very aware of journalism from a very broad point of view, but I'd say my baptism by fire was doing the Donald Margulies play Time Stands Still. That for me was a real education because I spent a lot of time with some incredible journalists, war reporters particularly - Bob Woodruff, Dexter Filkins - people who were very helpful in painting the picture for me and reading the accounts of people and what they experienced, a lot of PTSD.

The real importance of reading is that it creates an ease & intimacy with the process of writing... It also offers you a constantly growing knowledge of what has been done and what hasn't, what is trite and what is fresh, what works and what lies there dying (or dead) on the page. The more you read, the less apt you are to make a fool of yourself with your pen or word processor.

[Donald Trump ] would make history in so many ways because he is a candidate who eschewed the traditional arts of political campaigns, including field organization, traditional advertising, debate preparation and policy knowledge.

I don't want the words to be naked the way they are in faxes or in the computer. I want them to be covered by an envelope that you have to rip open in order to get at. I want there to be a waiting time -a pause between the writing and the reading. I want us to be careful about what we say to each other. I want the miles between us to be real and long. This will be our law -that we write our dailiness and our suffering very, very carefully.

Democratic candidate John Kerry on Tuesday chose fellow Senator John Edwards to be his running mate. Asked about Edwards' lack of foreign policy experience, Kerry revealed his new campaign slogan, 'I Promise Not to Die.'

When you're just reading a note card but when you're just reading a note card and it doesn't even feel real, it's difficult at times. But I have no problem doing interviews. So I have absolutely no problem doing interviews.