Thomas F. Eagleton Quotes

Modern politics today requires a mastery of television. I've never really warmed up to television and, in fairness to television, it's never warmed up to me.

There is literally no such thing as an idea that cannot be expressed well and articulately to today's voters in 30 seconds.

Practice whatever the big truth is so that you can say it in forty seconds on camera.

Television has shortened our political discourse.

The old guys schmooze; the new guys broadcast.

Television has become the primary precinct of politics.

Television has accustomed us to brief, intimate, telegraphic, visual, narrative messages. Candidates are learning to act, speak, and think in television's terms. In the process they are transforming speeches, debates, and their appearances in news into ads.

Political discourse has been reduced to "Where's the beef?" "Read my lips," and "Make my day." Where are the assassins when we really need them?

No man pleases by silence; many I please by speaking briefly.

Youth doesn't reason, it acts. The old man reasons and would like to make the others act in his place.

Modern political speechwriting is certainly a skill, and one that requires experience and practice to master.

I remember sitting in on meetings where everyone in the room was twice as old as I was.

I don't like the way young people write and talk about the old. I don't like their attitude, which, if they weren't young and therefore bright and vibrant, would be called outdated.

In the television age, the key distinction is between the candidate who can speak poetry and the one who can only speak prose.

I think it's impossible for any of us not to find television, and the political process at its best on television, compelling.

I understand the process of politics and the game of television.

Twenty can't be expected to tolerate sixty in all things, and sixty gets bored stiff with twenty's eternal love affairs.

Modern political speechwriting is not a high-minded pursuit for brilliant talents.

I am satisfied that all politicians were meant to be journalists and all journalists meant to be politicians.

During the last 20 years the advent of radio changed all the old rules of political campaigning. Now the successful advent of television, available for the first time this year in a presidential campaign, must again influence the planning of the campaign. Television, with its triple advantages of sight, sound and motion, can make or break a candidate, a party or a platform. In my opinion television must not be considered as supplementary media but as the heart of your program to “win friends and influence people.”

I, of course, am not influenced by the television cameras, but some members are.

Theodore Roosevelt may have invented the sound byte.

Television today is the stage on which the drama of politics is played out.

History must only guess at the effect that television would have had during earlier conflicts over the future of the nation.

Television looked at politicians and saw a bottomless pit of advertising.