Charles Krauthammer Quotes

Newt Gingrich developed a whole vocabulary of polarization in order to get Republican candidates elected.

Tainting the Tea Party movement with the charge of racism is proving to be an effective strategy for Democrats. There's no evidence that Tea Party adherence are any more racist than other Republicans and indeed many other Americans. But getting them to spend their time purging their ranks and having candidates distance themselves should help Democrats in November, having one's opponent rebut charges of racism is far better than discussing joblessness.

Most pundits regard an election year session as an opportunity for the two parties to frame issues and garner political advantage in advance of the approaching election.

Newt has two transitions behind him. First he had to capture control of the House. He had to get the Republican budget through. He had to get the Contract With America through. He has done that.

I firmly believed throughout 1971 that the major hurdle to winning the presidency was winning the Democratic nomination. I believed that any reasonable Democrat would defeat President Nixon. I now think that no one could have defeated him in 1972.

Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, said that Republicans' number one priority was the defeat of President Obama.

Joe Scarborough was one of 74 Republicans elected to the Congress in 1994 in response to the missteps of the early Clinton era. He was the first Republican elected to Congress from his northern Florida district since the 1870s and handily won re-election three times.

Republicans in the South could not win elections by talking about issues. You had to make the case that the other guy, the other candidate, was a bad guy.

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

Republicans want to use Obamacare in the 2014 elections against Democrats who voted for it. They want to see it fail, even at the expense of people's health.

Successful presidential campaigns follow a two-part strategy. For Republicans, Richard Nixon described it as running to the right in the primaries and running back to the center in the general election. For Democrats, the idea is to go to the left in the primaries, then to the center.

Look at, look, the Tea Partiers, who are controlling the Republican Party....Their stated policy, publicly stated, is to do whatever it takes to see to it that Obama only serves one term. What's, what does that, what underlines that? 'Screw the country. We're going to whatever we do to get this black man, we can, we're going to do whatever we can to get this black man outta here... It is a racist thing.

Isn't it just heart-stopping and mind-numbing when you stop and realize that the Republican Party doesn't want to win?

The Tea Party definitely scored a significant victory with Senator Cruz's election in 2012 and scored victories in some statewide primaries. But to me, as the Tea Party gets stronger within the Republican Party in Texas, the prospect of a blue Texas becomes stronger and stronger.

We're movers, forward thinkers, people who get things done. But the Tea Party and Republicans like Bob Dold are holding us back.

I don't really think it's appropriate for me to be picking and choosing in the primaries. It's pretty dumb politics for a Republican to choose between Republicans in a contested primary because obviously you're going to be offending some people.

I think the GOP, the Grand Old Party, the Republicans, they will regroup.

If you win elections on the theory that government is always bad and will mess up a two-car parade... a real change-maker represents a real threat. So your only option is to create a cartoon, a cartoon alternative, then run against the cartoon. Cartoons are two-dimensional; they're easy to absorb.

When you are in the government, you have to demonise your opposition.

Some of us believe, with good reasons, that the Republicans are 'mad-dogging' Hillary Clinton with the Benghazi hearing to damage not only her presidential prospects, but also to damage President Obama's credibility.

One of the favorite tricks of the Democrats is to try to get the Republicans to pass over their strongest candidate and nominate instead a candidate who will be easy to beat.

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

Joe Biden stands out from other Democratic candidates not just by taking on President Trump directly but also by seeking to separate Trump from the rest of the Republican Party.

If I'm fortunate enough to get the nomination of the Constitution Party, I will take as many votes from Obama as I would from the Republican nominee.

Obama tried to make deals with Republicans, and I don't think he realized he'd have such an insanely opposing Congress.