David Dinkins Quotes
He's running for weather vane: he's got to see which way the wind is blowing to decide his position.]
Characterizing his mayoralty opponent Rudolph W. Giuliani:
David Dinkins, Mayor, New York City (Democrat), Campaign Speech, October 1993
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Referring to his opponent, Doug Wilder's changed positions:
Zacharia read the quotation which the audience was sure was another of the many Republican attacks on Barack Obama’s foreign policy and his decision making. The Republicans came up with the same type rhetoric that they did in earlier years with Democratic Presidents starting with Harry Truman. There have always been some politicians and pundits who regard any President (or other leader) who takes time to gather facts, hear alternative views, consider and reflect upon them, and then reach a decision as week and indecisive—an intellectual. To them, a real man—a real leader—listens looks at an issue before him and shows decisiveness by not vacillating and making his decision relatively quickly. To them if it took that much time and thought to reach a decision the President is not confident that his is the right decision and that shows weakness. Of course, every senior leader knows that if the decision reaches him, there is no clear good solution. If there were, it would have been decided at a lower level. Ideologues however don’t like to acknowledge complexity.
This attack stimulated the President to tell his staff what leadership really is. See {641217} .
In a large, diverse nation like the United States even then, there was a wide spectrum of opinion and political ideology. It is true that almost all of Roosevelt’s initiatives were not original with him, but he was incredibly effective at bringing those ideas to the large bulk of people who had had no serious view on the subject before. He also was able to change many contrary opinions. What was most remarkable about Roosevelt was that the issues that he did advocate were very unpopular and even anathema to the establishment—the “ruling class” of the day even though most were in his own political party.
An excellent example of this occurred in the first decades of the 21st century. At the beginning if the century, the majority of Americans were clearly opposed to the idea of same-sex / gay marriage. By 2008, the population was evenly split, for and against. By 2014 the majority of Americans were clearly in favor of same-sex marriage and it had been legalized in more than a dozen states.
Political polls are very important tools in modern politics. However, they can be, and often are, inaccurate. More often they are misinterpreted, and results can vary extensively depending on how a question is worded. For example, in the 2012 Presidential election Republican Mitt Romney’s polls did not tell him that he would lose by a substantial margin. He, and some of this closest staff, thought they would actually win.
David Norman Dinkins was an American politician, lawyer, and author who served as the 106th Mayor of New York City from 1990 to 1993, becoming the first African American to hold the office.
