George H. W. Bush Quotes

In politics, familiarity doesn't breed contempt. It breeds votes.

Campaigns are no longer high-minded exchanges of ideas, even though God knows we need more good ones - ideas, that is.

I'll be glad to reply to or dodge your questions, depending on what I think will help our election most.

Most pundits regard an election year session as an opportunity for the two parties to frame issues and garner political advantage in advance of the approaching election.

I ran two campaigns for governor in a state that's 2-1 Democrat where I did not mention my opponent in print, radio, or television. I don't know if any other politician at a gubernatorial, congressional, or a senatorial level can make the claim.

Downplaying their faults is pretty much the point of campaigns. But we do count on them living with the constant terror of public rejection.

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.

No politician has ever been defeated by a speech he didn’t give.

It's been proven with consistency. The only way to win [municipal elections] is to walk. You have to like going out and pressing the flesh and placing yourself at risk.

To win [elections] in this country these days you've got to campaign down to a 13-year-old's level of mental development.

Presidential nomination debates have turned into mud wrestling instead of expositions of the candidates’ views.

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

In 1840, William Henry Harrison is the first one to really campaign as a candidate, and the campaigns were totally frivolous. I mean, people were drinking hard cider all day. They were big parades; no one was debating the issues.

Don't fall in love with the map. The map doesn't win elections.

You've got to attract interest in your candidate. The problem when you're running far behind is that you've got to move through those positive phases very quickly. Then, you have to draw attention to the other guy. You've got to create interest in why you differ from him and you've got to create a desire to remove him.

They [candidates] say, "I don't want to say anything controversial." And so nobody covers them. Then they blame the journalists, saying "Why don't they write down what I said?" In congressional races, 90 percent of the time the answer is, "Because you are boring and you don't have anything that makes me interested in listening to you. Why the heck should somebody write it down? There's nothing here worth hearing."

John Kerry suspended his campaign for five days this week in honor of President Reagan. And right now, he's ahead in the polls. How's that make him feel? Disappears for a week and he's up in the polls. What else can he do now but go into hiding.

We talked about various aspects of what we wanted to talk about, Hillary [Clinton] and [Donald] Trump and down-ballot stuff, various issues. One of the things that it showed was you've got to use fear.

Spin is overrated. It is strategy, not spin, that wins elections.

You know a Senate race is obviously a much smaller deal than a presidential race. What I think makes a very hard job considerably easier when you're going to debate is if you have reminded yourself - or somebody has reminded you during the course of your campaign - that consistency is enormously important. That people don't want to hear you say one thing in one part of the state and another thing in another part of the state.

Shockingly enough, what people say during campaigns is meant to increase the odds they get elected.

In most of my campaigns, I find it is best not to mention my opponent by name because, by doing so, it just gives him a chance to get into the headlines.

You sell your candidates and your programs the way a business sells its products.

[Referring to election campaigns:] The partisan strife in which the people of the country are permitted to periodically engage does not tend to the development of ugly traits of character, but merely discloses those that preexist.

Politicians are always realistically maneuvering for the next election. They are obsolete as fundamental problem-solvers.