Barack Obama Quotes

I'm also politically independent so I'm not a fan of either the Democrats in Congress or the Republicans in Congress.

I would tell the Democrats in Washington who are trying to be civil with the "bipartisanship" to please stop and let the joker die once and for all, let the agents of chaos hit the pavement, stop picking them up.

I think it's clear to me that what - when I look at the tea party, it's about one-third Democrat, one-third Republican, one-third independents. But 100 percent of them are sure that the agenda that is taking place in Washington, D.C., is about extremism and is about bankrupting this country and every state within this country.

You have a political and media elite who have an idiom by which they describe politics. It's highly, highly polarised. It's right, left, red, blue, up, down, victorious, crushed.

It used to be you had real friends on the other side of the aisle. It's not like that anymore. Society has changed. The public is to blame as well. I think the people have gotten dumber.

It's a sad indication of where Washington has come, where policy differences almost necessarily become questions of integrity. I came to Washington in the late '70s, and people had the ability in the past to have intense policy differences but didn't feel the need to question the other person's character.

You've got the brain-washed, that's the Democrats, and the brain-dead, that's the Republicans!

I say Republicans aren't right all the time. Democrats aren't wrong all the time - now, maybe most of the time, but not all the time.

The more you observe politics, the more you've got to admit that each party is worse than the other.

I've decided to cut out the part of the speech where I say anything nice about Democrats.

I think it has done us more harm believing in the huge differences between left and right, Democrat and Republican.

I would like Obama to be tougher on going up against the Republicans, I don't think he should try to be so moderate.

It's nice to say let's be bipartisan. But we're a partisan nation. We were raised as a partisan nation.

I'm very concerned about the tone of politics in recent years. We've seen a decline in civility and bipartisanship, and a rapid increase in hostility between those who have differing opinions. I think this has led to the alienation of the public in governance, which jeopardizes democratic participation.

We are now living in a post-Roosevelt, post-Reagan universe. What comes next will not be post-partisan, because faction is an intrinsic human impulse.

The Right-wingers everywhere take themselves too seriously, whether in the U.S. or the U.K. And, by the way, so does the Left. The Left can take itself a little too seriously as well.

I mean, look, we're living in a country where you can't have a non-denominational response. If you're slightly critical of either party, all of the partisans jump on you like you're a lunatic.

We have drained common sense out of our politics. The more we focus on tactics and games, the more good people check out and give up.

The two parties are still more polarized than ever before and the rise of partisan media is an important reason for it.

The Republican and Democratic parties have accomplished an amazing feat with the red state/blue state paradigm. They've convinced everyone that regardless of how bad they are, the other guy is worse.

In Washington, compromise has become a dirty word.

True partisans draft legislation that gives themselves everything and their enemies nothing. They love bills that repulse and even disgust the other side. Today's politics have become an all-or-nothing, black-or-white, zero-sum game - it's not a contact sport but a blood sport.

We don't like to deal with people who are trying to kill the revolution. You need to hire a Republican!

I don’t chose my friends and associates on the basis of political party. The Senate has become altogether too nasty.

Campaigns are partisan. Governing should not be partisan.