Bob Martinez Quotes

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.

Political parties exist to get bums on seats.

I think the Democratic Party realizes, having lost two presidential elections, we need to do a better job of creating a farm team.

What is the primary purpose of a political leader? To build a majority. If voters care about parking lots, then talk about parking lots.

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.

Let's not just look at it as taking votes away from Gore. Our support comes from a lot of people.

Our opponents struggled manfully, desperately; but wind and tide were against them. They had campaign and other papers, good speakers, and large meetings; but we were far ahead of them in singing and electioneering emblems and mottoes which appealed to popular sympathies.

Divide the floaters [undecided voters] into blocks of five and put a trusted man with necessary funds in charge of these five and make him responsible that none get away and that all vote our ticket.

Practical politics is the politics of the coming election.

The Republicans always looked bad three years out of four. But the year they look good is election year.

Among the reasons Donald Trump is president is that he read the nation and the world better than his rivals.

I had just as much support from Republicans as I did Democrats when I ran for president. But I should have organized the Democratic Party to get me re-elected.

I've worked on enough campaigns to know that the most aggrieved candidate rarely emerges victorious.

Trump was doing very well on a model that made sense, but now, as the campaign has gotten to the end stages, a more traditional campaign has to take place.

The key to winning any general election in the USA is to excite your base and then expand your base - get independent voters and voters who haven't been voting for your party to come to your party.

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

Don't get mad. Don't get even. Get elected.

If you can’t run against a political candidate, run against his campaign manager.

The most important thing to [political] parties is who is victorious—not the fairness of the process.

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

Elections are not about solving anything. Elections are about winning.

Rockefeller brought a lot of balance to my administration…. I wanted him on the ticket but if Rockefeller had stayed on the ticket I would probably have not gotten the nomination. Ronald Reagan would have gotten the nomination. Rockefeller made the unselfish decision to withdraw so I could win the nomination.

You have to have candidates who can actually win. The winners make policy; the losers go home.

In politics, familiarity doesn't breed contempt. It breeds votes.