Thomas E. Mann Quotes

In 2008 all the stars aligned perfectly for Obama's 6-point victory over John McCain. He was an inexperienced, untested neophyte, and successfully convinced enough voters to paint their own version of what hope-and-change was all about on the blank canvas he provided.

Do you ever get the feeling that the only reason we have elections is to find out if the polls were right?

Idealism loses to pragmatism when it comes to winning elections.

Well, usually when you talk about a mandate, you're talking about an overwhelming win. I don't think by any measurement the 2004 election was an overwhelming win.

In the run-up to the 1992 Democratic convention, Clinton's campaign realized that voters thought the young governor had a privileged upbringing. They didn't buy his alleged concern for the middle class.

There's a basic law, Klein's second, or third, or fourth law of politics in the TV age, which is warm always beats cold, with the exception of Richard Nixon. The nicer guy usually wins.

The image that the public gets is whatever they perceive it to be. Everybody has an opinion, everybody has their own vision, so I don't know what my public image is. I have no idea.

I'd rather be underestimated by the polltakers than by the voters.

In American politics if you are perceived as not doing well on the economy, you get fired.

If we don’t win, we don’t govern.

So go ahead with your program, President Trump. That why the people voted for you -- except the majority of them didn't.

Elections are always a Rorschach test - people look at the results and see what they want to see.

A central task for any campaign is to develop a narrative: a short, simple story explaining where we are, how we got here and where we need to go.

Even though voters overwhelmingly dislike negative ads, they do influence voters' opinions about a candidate.

I campaigned in 2012 all over this country for months: 'Repeal and replace Obamacare.' That was not the mandate of the voters. If they wanted to repeal Obamacare, the 2012 election would have been probably significantly different.

Shockingly enough, what people say during campaigns is meant to increase the odds they get elected.

I wouldn't claim to know what another person is thinking. I can imagine it, but it's my interpretation, and I try to make that clear. It's my vision of what I think their life is. I don't think there are empirical truths in that regard.

If you're running to be president of the United States, you can't just tell people you're going to make America great again. I think you need to begin to explain exactly how you're going to do it policy-wise. We're not going to win a general election with a candidate that refuses to detail policy.

[Barack] Obama won two elections but certainly the first one not because people wanted that agenda of his. He never told them what his agenda was. Not as it played out. Obama was something other.

It looks to me like the candidates are trying to relieve the farmer of his vote, instead of his debts.

The pattern of American presidential elections is that the more optimistic candidate, whether it's John Kennedy and let's get America moving again, Ronald Reagan, it's morning in America, or Barack Obama, yes, we can, always wins, or nearly always wins.

A big win for [Hillary] Clinton would allow her to claim that the country rejected Trumpism, while a narrow win leaves her limping into office with the highest unfavorable ratings for any new president.

Who’s to say that it takes something like a drug to mess with your perception of reality? How did Hitler deceive a nation? How can one group of people look at the world and see one thing, and another see something completely different? One sees a town, another sees a desert. One sees beauty, another sees chaos.” The skin of this world,” he said quietly.

If free will exists, why do the tallest candidates with the best hair usually win elections ?

In a way, it's all down to perception, isn't it? And everyone has their own take on everything.