Sam Tanenhaus Quotes

I do not question people’s motives in politics. I think we do too much of that.

Making sense of a political moment when you're in the midst of it is difficult: even if you avoid commercial and personal conflicts, it can still be hard to see it and understand it.

So I think that we're in a very heightened and somewhat unusual period of politics and polling around the countries that New Zealanders take close interest in.

I still love following and thinking about politics. I enjoy recommending important journalism I read or see from other sources.

I've been a political junkie for a long time. I find the way Washington works is just fascinating to me.

I don't know anything about politics. I wouldn't put too much into my prediction on politics.

Group personification obscures, rather than illuminates, important political questions.

No man can be a politician, except he be first a historian or a traveller; for except he can see what must be, or what may be, he is no politician.

He has the best political mind of all the generals I have.

Politics is a matter of communications.

It is not very often given to a politician to turn out to be right.

History is a dubious guide to current politics.

Our job is to bash the President.

What public men, whether in or out of office, must avoid, is the making of predictions. This is what is called, in their own language, " committing themselves," and is never done without the greatest caution and necessity; and, therefore, whenever public men choose to put themselves at issue with the ministers, and hazard predictions, they become from that moment entitled to the praise of superior wisdom or not, just as their expectations are or are not verified by the event.

If there is a constant to the American campaign story, it is that elites can’t predict the future very well. News is what surprises us, which is why the political press always has news. Voters are always undoing our certainties.

We liked to think that polling and political analysis had become scientific, but this campaign changes all that.

Politics is power, and communications is power,

You can learn a lot about Pat Buchanan by talking to his campaign staff, particularly the ones who have quit or been fired.

When I was very young and came into politics, I basically thought ideas would do the trick.

If Romney would go ideological in explaining Obama, it would help. We gotta stop the, 'He's a nice guy' stuff. Nice guys don't do what Obama is doing. Nice guys don't say and do and act the way Obama is saying, doing, and acting.

It's hard not to be political.

I'm a big fan of political editor Allegra Stratton.

I've always watched the political shows.

We don't gaze into a crystal ball. I do not believe that we predict things. I think political science is bad at prediction. I think what we really do well is in a number of instances where politics matters, we can do a better job of tell you what is happening now, than other people. So, we can look at Syria today. We can look at the Eurozone today. And we can look at areas where politics is a driver and we can give you a pretty good sense in those areas of here is how to understand today.

The labour party is like a stage-coach. If you rattle along at great speed everybody inside is too exhilarated or too seasick to cause any trouble. But if you stop everybody gets out and argues about where to go next.