David Rothkopf Quotes

I wasn't looking for a hobby. If I were looking for a hobby, it wouldn't be the United States Senate. That's one of the toughest jobs I'd probably ever do. I just felt there wasn't enough compromise going on: People were too far to the left, too far to the right, with no one trying to build a compromise.

In politics the middle way is none at all.

The art of politics is to find something in the middle that satisfies most.

Compromises may not make great heroes, but they do make great democracies.

We have to really appeal to that sensible center.

I don't know how you can govern without ever compromising.

The job of a leader, the job of a governor, the job of a president, is to get the people in the room and bang enough heads together and rub enough arms and cajole enough to have them put the country and the state's greater interest ahead of their own personal partisan interest. That's what we did in New Jersey and that's the model for America.

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

President Johnson offered the middle of the road.

The dominant color of politics is gray; difficult choices and compromise are required at almost every step of the journey toward a major new program.

When you are President you have to get something done, and that often means compromise.

Nearly all legislation is the result of compromise.

Elected officials, when faced with either-or decisions, inevitably choose both.

President Bush should learn to focus on the shades of grey

The essence of liberalism is negotiation, a cautious half measure, in the hope that the definitive dispute, the decisive bloody battle, can be transformed into a parliamentary debate and permit the decision to be suspended forever in an everlasting discussion.

What good would politics be, if it didn’t give everyone the opportunity to make moral compromises?

Consensus is the essence of the legislative process.

Another reason commissions are able to produce consensus—perhaps the rarest of Washington commodities—is the simple opportunity they provide for intense private deliberations.

Politicians are elected to reach compromise. We compromise all the time in our daily lives. Is there something dirty about that?

Obama's extraordinary political skills suggest he is more than capable of rising above any personal historical grudges he may have inherited.

When you put emphasis on compromise rather than on principle, you end up with 2/3 of the principles being implemented.

I'm convinced that the most important division in human affairs is probably not the one between left and right, liberal and conservative. It's the one between zealotry and understanding, between absolute conviction and compromise, between preachers and politicians.

If I believe in something, I will fight for it with all I have. But I do not demand all or nothing. I would rather get something than nothing. Professional liberals want the fiery debate. They glory in defeat. The hardest job for a politician today is to have the courage to be a moderate. It's easy to take an extreme position.

Compromise is what it's got to be all about when you're governing, because no one is ever going to have a big enough majority to just do what they want to do all the time.

It's so much easier to throw rocks than it is to govern.