Mark McKinnon Quotes

If you're going to try to win an election, you can't be 80 percent. You can't say, I'm for what my Democratic opponent is, for but not quite so much of it.

I always think that the party that offers the most hope and ideas for the future is the party that wins.

We can take this country back. All we need is to nominate the right candidate. It's no more complicated than that.

Practical politics is the politics of the coming election.

The electorate is bored of talking about the past. They are much more interested in the future.

I think when you look to the future what you'll find is that the Republican Party is building a bigger party base on stronger values.

It's almost a very rough rule of thumb: when Democrats are able to successfully frame the meaning of an election season around middle-class fears, Democrats win the election; when Republicans are able to successfully frame the meaning of an election season around cultural fears, Republicans win the election.

Political parties exist to get bums on seats.

I'm unelectable in the District of Columbia.

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.

The GOP can't even envision winning the White House if we lose a significant percentage of the Hispanic vote.

I think we do want a front-runner from the Republican Party who can win the general election.

Competition for votes sends parties in a two-party system toward the center.

I certainly recognize that there will only be 10 or 12 challengers [for congressional seats] in the whole country who win, but my job is to be one of them.

Political candidates are always looking to capture the future.

You can't win an election with money alone.

You can't win an election unless you have a message.

People win elections based on having the right ideas, the right plans, like my seven step plan for 700,000 jobs. That's what wins elections.

Let me say this as your incoming chair of the Democratic national committee: I promise you, my friends, I commit to all Americans, that we will have a party that you can be proud of. We will elect Democrats up and down the ballot.

I think the GOP, the Grand Old Party, the Republicans, they will regroup.

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

I would say the reason that Tim Bishop electorally was able to get more votes, if you were just going to analyze registration and numbers, is that he had a quarter of the Republican vote, every election. No one is getting a quarter of the Republican vote from me.

Every time you work on a political campaign, half the people hate you. That's how it is.

I think that if the Democratic Party focuses on nominating who will make the best president, that's going to be a critical mistake. There's only one question at the end of the day, and that question is, Can the potential nominee beat Donald Trump?

I've been a candidate for office at least eight times. A couple times for mayor, state representative, city council.