Mitch McConnell Quotes

Nobody understood better than Mr. Lincoln the obvious truth that in politics it does not suffice merely to nominate candidates. Something must also be done to elect them.

Political parties exist to get bums on seats.

The thing that Tea Parties have to understand, you can't govern if you don't get elected.

Practical politics is the politics of the coming election.

You should be strenuous in seeing as many people as possible every day of every possible class and order, for from the mere numbers of these you can make a guess of the amount of support you will get on the balloting

Trump was doing very well on a model that made sense, but now, as the campaign has gotten to the end stages, a more traditional campaign has to take place.

When you are in election mode, you are focused only on winning.

In terms of the ability to go out and win - this is why you have campaigns. You go out, and you take your issues to voters, and you put them out there, and people respond, or they don't.

The big secret to winning elections is to get more votes than your opponent. My friend Representative Robin Hayes is a good example to study.

I supported Bob Schaffer's three races for Congress. But we all had concerns about whether he could win statewide. Then my wife suggested that I get it.

Let's not just look at it as taking votes away from Gore. Our support comes from a lot of people.

This could be a close election. I can pretty much tell which states are going to be close. If you would start two or three weeks before Election Day and saturate those critical states with [TV Advertising] spots, it could swing the election.

Our opponents struggled manfully, desperately; but wind and tide were against them. They had campaign and other papers, good speakers, and large meetings; but we were far ahead of them in singing and electioneering emblems and mottoes which appealed to popular sympathies.

Review" is a great word in politics. It will last you almost an entire election cycle if you play it right.

[On political campaigns:] Get an elbow, give an elbow.

If you can’t run against a political candidate, run against his campaign manager.

The Republicans always looked bad three years out of four. But the year they look good is election year.

You have to have candidates who can actually win. The winners make policy; the losers go home.

Candidates matter. Campaigns matter. 'He can win' or 'She can't win' is up there with, 'I'm going to lose 10 pounds, win the lottery, and live forever.' Saying it does not make it so.

It's about going to where your voters are.

I've worked on enough campaigns to know that the most aggrieved candidate rarely emerges victorious.

Democrats fell in love with the idea that winning elections was a matter of talking to voters about the one issue we think impacts them, instead of our plan to move the country forward as a whole.

Election results and winning an election is not all about winning the next election or planning to win the next election.

The key to winning any general election in the USA is to excite your base and then expand your base - get independent voters and voters who haven't been voting for your party to come to your party.

One strange quality of writing about political campaigns is that it's a little like writing about a baseball game inning by inning. We presume we can say something about the final result from the state of play a third of the way through. You can when a game is a colossal blowout, but you can't when it's close.