Jeff Flake Quotes

I don't think in national categories. For me it [policy] is about concepts and substance.

Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.

I really don't have tremendous political ambition. I have policy ambition.

Forget the consultants, the pundits and the pollsters; good policy is good politics.

Good policy makes good politics and what I've done has been good politics.

Over time, the best politics are policies that actually work …. Others in the White House are looking for short term political victories. The political hacks are just doing their jobs.

What succeeds best politically does not always do so policy wise and vice versa.

Successful and unsuccessful political policies have one commonalty. The people who created the policies thought they would be successful.

Politics is about making institutions work somewhat better, helping people’s lives at the margins

I prefer to work at the policy level, on trying to fix flawed government policies.

There is an old maxim which states that good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from poor judgment. I think something similar can be said of government policy, to wit: Good policy comes from experience, and experience comes from poor policy.

I'll go to my grave saying a gimmick is not good public policy.

Policy is driven by more than politics, however. It is equally driven by ideas.

Good economics is good politics.

I do politics in order to do policy.

I mean, you can't be less ruthless than the opposition simply because your government's policy is benevolent, can you now?

My focus has been on being a good congressman, and there is so much other work to do.

Everybody has to remember that economics is very tied to politics.

Democrats are very good at governing. When it comes to messaging, I'm not too sure about.

I think that Donald Trump is very concerned about finding the right way to be effective in a responsible way. And he wants to be effective.

[Hillary Clinton] is going to decide war, peace, and health, education, livelihood for my kids. I want the best person.

Information upon points of practical politics.

I'll come out with policy on that and make on the future.

Campaigning is different from governing.

I ask a simple question. Hillary Clinton has been doing this for 30 years. Why the hell didn't you do it over the last 15, 20 years? And you do have experience. I say the one thing you have over me is experience, but it's bad experience, because what you've done has turned out badly. For 30 years you've been a position to help, and if you say that I use steel or I use something else, make it impossible for me to do that. I wouldn't mind. The problem is you talk but you don't get anything done, Hillary.