John Mahoney Quotes

I think when you look to the future what you'll find is that the Republican Party is building a bigger party base on stronger values.

Nobody understood better than Mr. Lincoln the obvious truth that in politics it does not suffice merely to nominate candidates. Something must also be done to elect them.

The GOP needs to figure out a way to become more appealing to new constituencies.

All of the candidates agree that the Democratic Party needs to undergo fundamental reforms.

The thing that Tea Parties have to understand, you can't govern if you don't get elected.

[On political campaigns:] Get an elbow, give an elbow.

I ran for chairman of the Democratic Party to win elections.

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

We must invest in and empower our state and local parties by creating effective field operations, an enhanced and advanced voter file, and a culture of collaboration between candidates at every level. Let's put the voters first.

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

Democrats fell in love with the idea that winning elections was a matter of talking to voters about the one issue we think impacts them, instead of our plan to move the country forward as a whole.

Moving forward, I will be committed to building a stronger team so that the GOP can compete and win statewide in 2018, including the possibility of being a candidate in that cycle.

No part of the education of a politician is more indispensable than the fighting of elections.

I definitely learned about the inner workings of campaigns enough to know that I'm glad that I'm not in politics.

I think it's very important to always make sure that you're talking to the entire coalition and to as many Americans as possible; not to go chasing after one little group or another. The Democrats would bring new groups into their party and not notice that larger groups are going out the back door.

If you can't be a populist in Arkansas, you ain't going to be a populist in Washington.

I know how to run a nationally paced campaign.

We need to go everywhere. There is not one county in this state, I don't care how far west you go, that doesn't have Democrats. We have to be proud of who we are.

I was your C student. I paid attention in the classes that were about how to get elected.

Too often, the Democratic Party has been split between its grass-roots activists on one side and its elected officials and party leaders on the other. It's important to remember: We need both wings to fly.

I think I know a lot about campaigns.

The people who run campaigns today have more iron control over the campaign than they did 20 or 30 years ago.

You don't win elections on Election Day. You win them by what you do all year round, by the day-to-day good will you generate in each precinct.

Elections are about fucking your enemies. Winning is about fucking your friends.

Practical politics is the politics of the coming election.