Robert Reich Quotes

A Whig [Liberal] may be a fool, a Tory [Conservative] must be so.

There's no such thing as a moderate. A moderate is just a liberal disguise, and they are doing everything they can to derail the conservative agenda

George W. Bush is conservative but he is not a conservative.

My audience is much more center right, or centrist.

I'm not a hard-line Republican, because I'm a lot more open-minded than that.

A liberal Republican is a contradiction in terms ... a moderate Republican is a liberal who doesn't like to call himself a liberal.

A liberal is a conservative who's been indicted.

Some people say we Democrats have to nominate a moderate in 1988, someone who doesn't say much, who says it with a slightly southern accent, who espouses strong conservatism with just a little dash of compassion thrown in. They've described a liberal Republican basically, sort of a George W. Bush with chest hair.

On my conservative days I’m a Democrat.

This is the classic fight between the moderate Republicans who try to get to the middle by compromise and the conservative Republicans who try to create a new middle by driving the left away.

This difference between the two parties covers a wide range, and is indicative of the conservative thought of the one and the progressive thought of the other.

At the end of the day, Democrats go out and appeal to 30 percent of the far left; Republicans go out and appeal to 30 percent of the far right. Hey, there's a big middle ground here that's not represented. I think that, Bill Weld and myself, I think the Libertarian Party really occupies that ground.

Bush is no conservative.

I don't trust liberals, I trust conservatives.

The left hand of the right wing.

There were more moderate Republicans in those days than there are today.

The two parties which divide the state, the party of Conservatism and that of Innovation, are very old, and have disputed the possession of the world ever since it was made.

I don’t think America really has a left wing. The American left wing would fit very comfortably in the center or center right of most European political spectrums.

In truth, the parties of Whig [Liberal] and Tory [Conservative] are those of nature. They exist in all countries, whether called by these names, or by those of Aristocrats and Democrats, Cote Droite and Cote Gauche, Ultras and Radicals, Serviles, and Liberals.

In New York, the opposite of a Democrat is not a Republican; it’s a Fascist.

The dilemma of modern progressive politics is that you are always fighting on two fronts: The conservatives on the right, and the conservatives on the left.

Extremism of the right should not be answered by extremism of the left, because neither extremism will work. The country has been wise in avoiding extremism

Our political system is based on two parties fighting to capture the middle. Unfortunately the Republican party has been captured by conservative extremists.

I was never a Democrat but there are some Republicans who think I ought to be.

You do not compromise with the right wing of the Republican party.