Mary Alice Crimm Quotes

Politicians are, in general, receptive to those who make the most noise.

You can get from a politician whatever you demand in this country. The great irony is that everybody complains about how it runs but not enough people direct their force and power directly at the politicians and make demands upon them. Ours is a system that abhors remoteness. If you're remote from this political system, it'll kill you.

Dealing with politicians, that's a little different. But government doesn't change until people demand it.

Special interests and opponents have figured out how easy it is to disrupt town halls and get their own message out. The days of the truly free-form town halls may be over.

I have seen the times when the grassroots has moved the Congress. We listen way more often to our constituents than the lobbyists. And the grassroots are going to have to do it.

You don't change minds in Washington with sweet reason. You do it to the white light of public opinion.

If you can’t move the public, you can’t move the Congress.

Nothing happens in America without pressure.

Public opinion has become the public law

No politician can sit on a hot issue if you make it hot enough.

To some degree it matters who's in office, but it matters more how much pressure they're under from the public.

I'm interested in full disclosure for people who give money to politicians. But I'm not a politician. I'm an advocate.

I really feel that political will is born out of popular will.

I became active in politics because I saw the possibility, if we all sat back and did nothing, of a world in which there would no longer be any stages for actors to act on.

There is no method by which an average citizen can effectively fight the White House in the media.

Ultimately, the question of campaign contributions will be decided by the public.

I was raised to speak out about politics and the world around me. I would do it whether I was in the public or not. It is the way I was taught. The American way.

Politics colours everything, and anyone who wants change is necessarily political. As an environmental campaigner more or less since I left school in the early '90s, I have always been involved in lobbying, campaigning and pushing for changes.

I have always believed that on important issues, the leaders must lead. Where the leaders fail to lead, and people are really concerned about it, the people will take the lead and make the leaders follow.

At the end of the day, the government, local government all bow to public pressure.

Leaders respond when they perceive that there will be a political cost of inaction.

Public agencies should be criticized.

What Congress does is respond to pressures that are upon it.

Towering over Presidents and State Governors, over Congress and State Legislatures, over conventions and the vast machinery of party, public opinion stands out in the United States, as the great source of Power.

The people who make the most noise get the most publicity. Interest groups do count as opposed to data and rationality.