Thomas Sowell Quotes

Well, the tough thing for them is that the Republican primary is pretty far over to the right, just as the Democratic primary is further over to the left than the average voter in each party.

As far as party primaries are concerned, both Republican and Democratic Party primaries are dominated by the most zealous voters, whose views may not reflect the views of most members of their own respective parties, much less the views of those who are going to vote in the November general election. In recent times, each election year has seen each party's nominee selected - or at least subject to veto - by its most extreme wing and then forced to try to move back to the center before the general election. This can only undermine the public's confidence in the integrity of the candidates of both parties.

In a two-party system, if both parties ignore public opinion, there is no place voters can turn.

It is the ultimate conceit of conservatives: that more than half of American voters don't make up more than half of our country.

The people who vote in the primaries are at the ideological edge of their party.

It is true that in some states the only important vote is the primary, when you choose between different members of the same party. In these states, where our two-party system usually does not function, it is important that everyone vote in the primaries. Elsewhere throughout the country, citizens should vote both in the primaries and in the final election, for where the two-party system works they will always have a choice between party candidates.

In our system today, many people don’t have to win general elections; they just have to win primaries.

The people who show up at the early primaries are very passionate and not much interested in compromise.

I have made it my practice to not get involved in primaries because picking the Republican candidate is the voters' job.

When people feel like they are being spoken directly to, I do feel like... they'll do things like turn out in an off-year, mid-year primary.

I will continue to work with the Republican Party to try to encourage primaries.

My problem anywhere is the damn Republicans closed out the independents from being able to vote in the primary.

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally.

George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump. Take your pick. They are hated; they are not opposed, and I wish an even bigger percentage of the American people would figure this out. The American people are running around thinking that all the hate and the racism and all these other isms are located on the Republican Party side.

The Constitution never even mentions political parties, let alone the Republican and Democratic parties, yet all the election laws help to protect them from competition.

The Republican party is the party of nostalgia. It seeks to return America to a simpler, more innocent and moral past that never actually existed. The Democrats are utopians. They seek to create an America so fair and non-judgmental that life becomes an unbearable series of apologies. Together, the two parties function like giant down comforters, allowing a candidate to disappear into the enveloping softness, protecting them from exposure to the harsh weather of independent thought.

It's tempting to remember that the Tea Party had a peak and then the Republican Party establishment sort of beat it back down. And so these things are won in a day.

The two great political parties of the nation have existed for the purpose, each in accordance with its own principles, of undertaking to serve the interests of the whole nation. Their members of the Congress are chosen with that great end in view.

[ Republican Party] is correctly described as a "radical insurgency" by one of the leading conservative commentators, Norman Ornstein.

Why should the Democratic and Republican parties be in charge of the debates, especially at a time when the largest block of voters has repudiated the Democratic and Republican parties? Why are they still in charge?

That's not saying there's not a bunch of good Democrats. I'm sure there's a lot of people who still haven't figured that out yet or simply don't want to have that pessimistic of an outlook, but I think the Democratic Party is completely worthless.

There is a very long list of parties in this year's election, some of the parties I have never heard of.

The Democratic Party is a coalition. Its strength and its weakness is, it's a coalition of interest groups, caucuses. It's a lot less homogeneous than the Republican Party, where people tend to believe the same things and oftentimes look alike.

The Democratic Party was always there on crime, but in the past we let the ideologues on the left dominate. The Republicans may still let the ideologues on the right dominate.

Whatever the label on the parties, or the war cries issuing from the demagogues who lead them, the practical choice is between the plutocracy on the one side and a rabble of preposterous impossibilists on the other.