James Carville Quotes

I didn't set out with the notion of running for elective office; it sort of grew over time. And I honestly at times questioned if progressive change can be effected through elected office.

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.

Elections are fundamentally about the future and not about the past.

Only votes talk, everything else walks.

There are ways to pursue political change. In a democracy, it's through the ballot box. There are other ways, and many democracies have many different systems of democracy.

The challenge in working in politics, particularly if you're working for a political party, is that everyone's a messenger.

Politics is an instrument that can transform society.

Political parties exist to get bums on seats.

I'm asking you to talk with your friends, neighbors, and relatives - even the ones you've never talked to about reproductive rights. That's how you can throw your number in the bucket, and stand with a president who has stood with us. Conversation by conversation, vote by vote, we will re-elect President Barack Obama!

Just by making a decision to stay out of politics, you are making the decision to allow others to shape politics and exert power over you. And if you are alienated from the current political system, then just by staying out of it, if you do nothing to change it, you simply entrench it.

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

Those who are outraged will vote.

I've got three little kids at home, and I'm trying to save this country from itself. I'm not here to play political power games, and I've had enough of people playing political power games, and this has just gone on too long.

Anything's possible in politics.

I'm not ready to give you a clear answer on whether electoral politics holds any particular hope for progressives. It would mean that nothing I did ever mattered.

Politics is about putting yourself in a state of grace.

When I turned 18, was the first time that I really started concentrating on politics. And I started doing so because I realized that in order to really create and generate change, it has to come from changing laws... so I started campaigning for Norman Lear's foundation, which was Declare Yourself.

Political work is the life-blood of all economic work.

Political elections are not life and death.

There are three critical ingredients to democratic renewal and progressive change in America: good public policy, grassroots organizing and electoral politics.

You can’t win if you don’t play. The people who get involved in politics are more likely to get their way.

George Minot [a Concord neighbor] thinks that it is of no use balloting, for it will not stay, but what you do with the gun will stay so.

Politicians trim and tack in their quest for power, but they do so in order to get the wind of votes in their sails.

It is never the case that a surrogate can deliver [votes] like a principle can.

Truth no more relies for success on ballot boxes than it does on cartridge boxes.