Kenneth M. Duberstein Quotes

Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable, the art of the next best.

Idealism loses to pragmatism when it comes to winning elections.

You win elections with coalitions. You don't win elections by ideologically cleansing your party.

In politics it's very dangerous to have a philosophy. In a democracy you should have politicians who settle the problems that exist, not who set out to prove philosophical ideals.

A pragmatist won't let ideology get in the way of what's got to be done to get elected.

Most of Gingrich's moderate positions are rooted in a realpolitik that transcends ideology.

Politics is about winning. If you don't win, you don't get to put your principles into practice. Therefore, find a way to win, or sit the battle out.

There is ample evidence that participation in an electoral process forces any party, regardless of ideology, to moderate its position if it wants to attract voters in large numbers.

The art of government is the art of negotiating and compromise.

We are hugely and sometimes willfully ignorant about the arts of politics and governing, especially about the utter necessity of compromise.

.In politics a man must learn to rise above principle.

I'm well aware of the pragmatism of politics.

I think President Obama is a committed, practicing nonideologue. He's consumed by neither tactics nor ideology. He is more concerned about outcomes than he is about process and categorizations.

I'm someone who believes in centrist governing philosophy.

Reagan is held up to us as an example of never raising taxes. Correction: Reagan raised taxes six of his eight years as president. Why? He was a pragmatist, not doctrinaire. He saw problems emerging, and when his policies faltered he changed his views. Flexibility, not rigidity.

I do not come bearing a party label on my sleeve - or a quick fix in my back pocket. I do not come with a rigid ideology in my heart - or a soul that tells me to go it alone. I do not come to uproot tradition - or to be imprisoned by it.

Moderates tend more than ideologues to be other-directed types who respond to external pressure.

The problem is that the right doesn't need any ideas to govern, but the left can't govern without ideas.

We live in a world in which politics has replaced philosophy.

I doubt there's any government in the world that guides itself primarily by strategy or conceptual documents or worldview. Anybody who has the reins of power has to look at practical limitations and tradeoffs - the fact that you can focus at most on one or two things at a time, that resources are limited.

Politics is the art of the possible.

I'm not sure if President Obama is an ideologue or a pragmatist. I am hoping and praying he's a pragmatist.

Politics isn't just about doing the right thing. It's also about winning.

Politics is not a game for naive thinkers. You may go in as an idealist, but you certainly won't come out as one.

Ideas, not ideology. Voters want a government that works.