Jimmy Carter Quotes

I follow politics in a big way, and always have since I was a kid. I've got opinions, but they're opinions on both sides - not just anti-Republican, which is a real popular thing for a rap artist to do. If you dis Republicans, nobody will get mad. I think the two-party system sucks. It's absolutely ignorant.

Republicans have said much worse things about me than any Democrat ever has.

I am not God. Nor am I Phantom. I am ready to accept any criticism. I have been in politics for decades. Each and every day, in several media, there is criticism of me.

I don't like to talk much, even when people speak bad about me. Inside me, I say, 'Why do they have to think of me that way?' But I know how I am. My objective is not that people follow me, but I'm happy that they do.

You know, everybody knows some of what politicians say is malarkey, and having somebody there to call them on it is good. I'd be happy to do that any time and any place.

Politicians always criticize each other in different ways.

I mean, the part you don't like, I mean, that's the only part. That's the part no one likes, and that is the criticisms, and the unfair criticisms, I might add, of my husband. But that's also just a fact of life in politics.

I took a lot of heat from Republicans when I stepped out of John McCain's campaign after the 2008 primaries. I still supported McCain, and voted for him, but I just didn't want to be the tip of the spear attacking Obama.

I think anybody who really knows me knows I'm not a media hound and knows that I'm really sort of trying to do the best I can with the situation that I found myself in.

Voters are looking for credibility and are wary of polish. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter which candidate can more deftly read a teleprompter.

Just a few months ago in the Republican primary Mitt Romney said to his opponents, who he was crushing at the time, stop whining. And I think that's a good message for the Romney campaign. Instead of whining about what the Obama campaign is saying, why don't you just put the facts out there and let people decide rather than trying to hide them.

You know, there's nothing you can do about your public image. It is what it is. I just try to do things honestly. I guess honesty is what you would call subjective: if you feel good about what you're doing, yourself, if you figure you're doing the right thing.

People can judge me for what I've done. And I think when somebody's out in the public eye, that's what they do. So I'm fully comfortable with who I am, what I stand for, and what I've always stood for.

Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.

Mr. Gingrich's injunction represents the worst of American political discourse, which reached a low during the dispiriting presidential campaign of 1988. Then, more than ever before, negative argument displaced reasoned discussion about how a nation might best be governed. The sound bite reigned. Attack commercials flourished. The signs this year aren't any better. Evidence that negative campaigning can come back to sink the sender has had little impact. The races for governor in California and Texas have already seen the same slash and burn. No doubt the proceedings will grow more rabid still as November nears. Negative discourse serves democracy poorly. The temptation to avoid serious debate is already great. It increases as the stakes soar and slander becomes a rewarding, easy option. The issues of the day go untended. The whole affair takes on the character of the gladiator's art. The GOPAC glossary may herald a descent into even lower levels of discourse. It comes blessed by a politician of some influence—the Republican whip in the House—and it is intended for candidates on the state level, many of them presumably running for the first time. Even though Mr. Gingrich himself may not have seen the list before it was mailed, this is a disturbing document. The nakedness of the GOPAC offering also makes it useful. There must be limits to the negative politics that voters will bear; the bald appeal to invective will certainly probe those limits. For now, it should be said that some adjectives in the glossary aptly describe the glossary itself: shallow, sensationalist, and, yes, shame(ful).

The passion which all Democrats seem to have for writing in Republican papers, and vice versa, is something astonishing, and it is only exceeded by their unconquerable desire to censure men of their own party.

Never attack a politician through his children.

This race has degenerated into an onslaught of negative and personal attacks, not worthy of the American people and not worthy of this critical time in our nation’s history.

No one individual vote, no one individual quote, no one individual statement defines me, my beliefs or my record.

All of these attacks on Secretary Clinton, at the end of the day, are character attacks.

If Romney would go ideological in explaining Obama, it would help. We gotta stop the, 'He's a nice guy' stuff. Nice guys don't do what Obama is doing. Nice guys don't say and do and act the way Obama is saying, doing, and acting.

I'm fully aware of people's perception of me, so when I start taking myself too seriously, I have to remember that, to them, I'm just the guy from 'Police Academy.'

There are conservatives who say, 'Why would you show the country in a weak way?' And there are liberals who say I'm exploitative.

Regardless of how people love to deride politicians, democracy is not an easy gig. My decisions, views and heartfelt principles are dismissed by so many as careerist, opportunist or attention-seeking.

We critique all politicians who are in power, whenever there's a talking point.