Daniel Pfeiffer Quotes

The Republican leadership thinks the best way to avoid losing elections is to let the Democrats win every controversial issue.

I'm absolutely fine with the rough and tumble of politics.

Even the most ardent Obama supporter can't, in good conscience or sound mental state, argue that President Obama has changed the way Washington works. He's just played the game a little better, if you're being charitable on how you keep score on that count.

Obama spent the first two years of his administration practicing political unilateral disarmament.

When it comes to conservative social issues, it saddens me when sometimes my fellow Republicans duck and cover in the face of pressure from the left. Our loudest opponents on the left are never going to like us so let's quit trying to curry favor with them.

Like a cowboy saddling a bucking stallion, Republican leaders tried to tame the Tea Party while riding it to victories.

I'm not consumed with political machinations.

Absolutely. I think that this is - politics is a tough business. I describe it as a full contact sport. You have to be prepared to get in there and mix it up.

Pity the poor senator or representative trying to stay alive in the political jungle. At every turn, there's a danger: a constituent who actually wants something done. Or worse, a campaign donor who might be offended by that something.

If it's necessary to join a caucus and get a committee assignment, I'll do it.

I had the vocation for politics. What I didn't have was any aptitude for political combat. I took the attacks personally, which is a great mistake. It's never personal: It's just business. It was ever thus.

It is always a disappointment to turn from forthright consideration of some subject - whether from the Left or the Right, a poet or a plumber - to the Beltway version, in which the only aspects of the issue that matter are the effects it will have on the fortunes of the two parties and the various men in power.

A lot of the Republicans wanted exactly what Barack Obama wanted, exactly what Nancy Pelosi wanted, exactly what Harry Reid wanted, which is to raise the debt ceiling, but they wanted to be able to tell what they view as their foolish, gullible constituents back home they didn't do it.

There are no techniques in politics.

I'm a proud Republican - there's no issue with that at all, so why can't I be a proud Republican and just try to solve problems?

Our adversaries - our Democratic adversaries - like to be able to portray the Republican Party as a bunch of wingnuts - narrow based, always have some agenda that's not attractive to the public... That's easier for them, and more fun, than dealing with their own problems. And I think their problems are significant.

Obama considers himself above deal-making and back-slapping, political necessities he often delegates to Vice President Joe Biden and other lesser sorts.

In the end, I think part of my problem was that I was a better legislator than I was a politician.

Politicians do not like to alienate voters no matter how lofty the goals.

Despite an occasional nagging misgiving, I quickly found myself prepared to use the serrated edge of the political knife in the Johnson White House.

[Politics in America is:] A chess tournament disguised as a circus.

Politics is having one foot in a fire and using the other foot to keep off the people who are trying to push you the rest of the way in.

Over time, the best politics are policies that actually work …. Others in the White House are looking for short term political victories. The political hacks are just doing their jobs.

Politicians quickly learn to pacify the liberals by passing laws and regulations which, to pacify the conservatives, would not be enforced.

Politicians are always realistically maneuvering for the next election. They are obsolete as fundamental problem-solvers.