Howard Fineman Quotes

Everyone loves to hate a spin doctor.

The single biggest weakness that politicians have as a group is that they want people to like them.

This is Capitol Hill where they never let facts get in the way of a good press release.

Nobody understood how to use television for his own purposes better than Nixon, despite his poor showing against John F. Kennedy in the televised presidential debate.

What a contrast, Trump is feisty but flexible. Obama, cool but rigid. But he had no reason to bend. The media already bought into his shtick. His giddy fan base ate up every white-coated lie.

I'll be glad to reply to or dodge your questions, depending on what I think will help our election most.

George Bush ran a campaign where he bragged about being an anti-intellectual, dismissing his Harvard and Yale pedigree, pretending he was an American every day, ordinary everyman, and as a result of that, played up his fumbling speech because it signified that he was a good guy. That is deeply and profoundly anti-intellectual.

Don't worry about polls, but if you do, don't admit it.

Pictures can be devastating. Who allowed John Kerry to get himself photographed windsurfing in a flowered swimsuit? Anyone in the real world in that operation?

In politics, being ridiculous is more damaging than being extreme.

We all know that looks matter, and modern politicians have always assumed that their battles are decided on both substance and image.

There is something discordant about a team of speechwriters and political operatives hammering away to create an image of the 'real, inner' candidate. And, to be blunt, there is no necessary connection between a moving life experience and the skills necessary for leadership.

Obama's pop-cultural focus may seem demeaning to the office of the presidency. It may be mockable. But it is also tremendously effective.

The most successful politicians are the ones who embrace their best traits while turning their liabilities into loveable attributes. And yet, many a candidate tries to run as something they aren't simply because the strategy dictates it.

Many senators have developed a canny sense of what will play best for the audience.

If I worried about pollsters, I wouldn't be president.

Every politician, every president gets votes by getting people that don't like him to like him. That's why politicians are slippery: because they talk out of both sides of their mouth.

The politician must always tell people what they want to hear.

Today being President is really no different than running for President. It’s about approval ratings and photo ops and damage control and deniability.

What Mr. [Robert F.] Kennedy says lacks only the merit of being true ... Bobby Kennedy can jump off the capital dome or whatever else he has to do to get the attention of the American people.

Sound bite hearings and sound bite journalism feed off each other.

We’re going to sell Jack like soap flakes. There are no accidents in politics.

Our presidents have been getting to be synthetic monsters, the work of a hundred ghost- writers and press agents so that it is getting harder and harder to discover the line between the man and the institution.

In order to govern you have to feed the news cycle

How can you govern if you always have to feed the news cycle?