Tom Vilsack Quotes

I think [ unpopular presidential candidates ] indicates, at least on the Democratic side, that we've got more work to do to strengthen our grassroots networks.

Democrats in 2020 can't just drive by red counties. You have to stop, get out of your car, ask for people's votes, and engage with them on issues that relate to their lives.

I'm going to be fighting to rebuild the Democratic party no matter what. I'm going to be fighting to make sure the Democratic party is known among working people that we are their champion no matter what.

Top Democrats laying down their markers for how they'll work with President [Donald] Trump, but who will take on the job of rebuilding the Democratic Party after Tuesday's crushing defeat put Republicans in control of the White House and congress.

I invigorated the grassroots in the Republican Party as well as the Democratic Party.

What is also true is that partly because my docket was really full here, so I couldn't be both chief organizer of the Democratic Party and function as Commander-in-Chief and President of the United States. We did not begin what I think needs to happen over the long haul, and that is rebuild the Democratic Party at the ground level.

I think a core principle of the Democratic Party has to be a defense of equal rights for every American. At the same time, when you look at the election, and not just the 2016 election, but the elections to come, Democrats have to do better than we did in 2016 in communities, in rural communities where people feel like they've been in a slow burn recession or depression for years, not just months.

Democrats need to become a 50-state party. You can't have a great party on the West Coast and the East Coast. You need to have a party in all 50 states.

I started as a community organizer. Every one of my campaigns was premised on getting new people involved. And if there's a theme in my public career it's that if ordinary people get involved then good things happen. So I want to see the Democratic Party move in that direction. And what that means is that we aren't just micro-targeting to eke out presidential victories; it means that we're showing up in places where right now we're not winning a lot.

You can't have a majority party in Minnesota or throughout the country without [support from] the people in these [rural] districts. Given the position [the Democratic Party] has taken, it's very hard to see how you can do that.

The Republican Party has bent over backwards not even criticizing Democrats in hopes that people wouldn't think they're what the Democrats say they are, while the Democrats go out and behave that way times ten all the time every day and never get called on it.

I think Hillary Clinton has a lot of lee way to go, either direction, and to probably most likely try to fudge it and get both parts of the party into talking points.

I don't sense an [Barack] Obama party. I think politics is transactional for him.

Trump is dividing people against each other; he's going to try and sow racial division; so you have to figure out an answer. I think really the only answer for the Democratic Party, or for progressives at large, is to have an answer about how these people who haven't been to college, who haven't had a lot of things given to them in life, are going to do better, year after year after year.

I think it's a healthy thing for the Democratic Party to go through some reflection.

I think even the Hollywood money people are saying they've got to get the party back from the Clinton wing. They can't, you know, keep nominating these Northeast liberals. They have to look for people who can win.

We need to invest at the local party unit and focus our energy on turn out. That's how we come back, and we can come back.

There's a lot that the majority, a big majority of the American people want to see us do and I'm very excited about that work. I think the Democratic Party has a record of being better for the economy when we hold the White House.

I think the Democrats have - we really have failed to be in rural America, in the sense of having our leaders spending time talking to folks in rural America. The president Barack Obama has been there, but other than the president and vice president, we have had not a whole lot of conversation in rural America.

I think is interesting is that term is so pejorative or understood to be so pejorative and there's a real difference between how Republicans, it seems to me, think of that and how Democrats do. I don't think Democrats feel as negatively about the Democratic Party establishment as Republicans do feel about their party's establishment.

Under Donald Trump, you know, we've seen the foundation of the Republican Party move into the Democratic Party, so Donald Trump, I think, will have a lot of trouble moving things through Congress.

I think when we show voters in every ZIP code across America that the Democratic Party is fighting for them - I mean, Dr. King said, what good is a seat at the table if you can't afford to buy a hamburger? I think that's a message that resonates everywhere, and we have to boldly put that forth, and we've got to organize around it everywhere so that people understand, in Wisconsin, or in the heart of Baltimore, what we stand for.

We know better than to think that Republicans can win only on the failures of Democrats. It still comes down to a contest of ideas, which is really good news, ladies and gentlemen, because when it's about ideas, the advantage goes to us. Against their dreary backdrop of arrogant bureaucracies, pointless mandates, reckless borrowing, willful retreat from the world and all that progressives have in store for us, the Republican Party stands as a great enduring alternative party.

I think the political reality for the Democratic Party is, you know, there are two sides. There's one side saying that we weren't liberal enough and another side saying we're too liberal. I think they're both right.

I was able to do that [showing up of Democratic benefits] when I was the candidate. But I've not seen or presided over that kind of systematic outreach that I think needs to happen.