Al Sharpton Quotes

Polling can undermine the ability of officials to lay out, debate, analyze, and implement their plans. By turning to instant [electronic] polls we would eliminate the captain and the officers and leave every shipboard decision to the passengers.

The original idea of blog publishing was that writer and reader would be on the same level. That it would be a conversation - not a lecture. People lost sight of that. We didn't. Kinja is designed to break down the walls of the ghettos. So that everybody - editor, writer, source, subject, expert, fan - can be a contributor.

Internet referendums will not, in the beginning, have any legally binding effect, but they will be politically binding.

We’re not going to win this war through polling.

Every Government official dreams of going directly to the people with arguments framed by that official.

When politicians try to govern by raising a wet finger to the wind or on the basis of public opinion polling, the public gets to think that all leaders are interchangeable.

We ought to change polls, not to follow polls.

The government is just the people acting together.

In polling, truth is what people perceive.

The Pulse of Democracy

I've learned a long time ago not to take polls too seriously.

The public mind is a cloudy region where only the simplest shapes are discerned with any accuracy.

Public Policy Polling asked a broad sample of Democratic and Republican primary voters whether they would support bombing Agrabah. Nearly a third of Republican respondents said they would, versus 13 percent who opposed the idea. Democratic preferences were roughly reversed; 36 percent were opposed, and 19 percent were in favor. Agrabah doesn’t exist. It’s the fictional country in the 1992 Disney film Aladdin. Liberals crowed that the poll showed Republicans’ aggressive tendencies. Conservatives countered that it showed Democrats’ reflexive pacifism. Experts in national security couldn’t fail to notice that 43 percent of Republicans and 55 percent of Democrats polled had an actual, defined view on bombing a place in a cartoon.

When we embraced social media, we took more control of the Newark narrative. We increased responsiveness toward residents. We drew more of our constituents in to participate in government and improve our cities.

I believe the term "blog" means more than an online journal. I believe a blog is a conversation. People go to blogs to read AND write, not just consume.

I have people come onstage and ask me questions and I get to meet them. That's one of the reasons I like it. When you're performing, when you're doing your movies, they're not there with you.

It's clear that the true problems of our Nation are much deeper - deeper than gasoline lines of energy shortages, deeper even than inflation or recession. And I realize more than ever that as President I need your help. So, I decided to reach out and listen to the voices of America.

If there is any change regarding that hope, we should ask the Syrian people, not anyone else in the world.

To pay attention to the actual core of the movement - that would be pretty hard. Can you concentrate for example on either the policy issues or the creation of functioning democratic communities of mutual support and say, well, that's what's lacking in our country that's why we don't have a functioning democracy - a community of real participation. That's really important. And that always gets smashed.

I believe that one of the most important things to learn in life is that you can make a difference in your community no matter who you are or where you live.

I went down and spoke to some of the people who lived in the neighborhood in Miami. At the end of the day I think my connection with Tarell [Alvin McCraney] is what helped me the most.

In this world which is losing faith in so called representative democracy, there are new developments in participatory democracy. These are very interesting developments, reflecting the revitalization of community power with a more and more active presence of minorities in political life, including the presence of women who are of course by no means a minority.

We need a new kind of citizenship, so that we can see citizens as themselves earning the rank of patriot because of their involvement in their community affairs....We as a society need to be encouraging people to focus not just on individual wants but on serving the larger community.

The best public policy is made when you are listening to people who are going to be impacted.

We all, parents, educators, community leaders, and every... citizen, need to come together to find new ways to engage children with the natural environment.