Robert A. Lehrman Quotes

If you [as a Presidential candidate] identify a problem, you are going to be expected to have a solution.

If you are a U. S. senator, you can give an ideological response to a serious problem and probably never be held accountable for it. Whereas the [state] governors are dealing with the real world—they have to run things, to make them work.

Good ideas are the backbone of good government.

Politicians can't manage. All they can do is talk.

Forget the consultants, the pundits and the pollsters; good policy is good politics.

To serve as prime minister while being too mindful of the approval rating is like serving as a prime minister on a roller coaster. What is important, I believe, is that I really act on promises that I make and leave results. Leave a track record and show that to the Japanese public, who will, at the end of the day, I hope, appreciate it.

No government at any level has all the answers.

To govern is to chose.

I’ve learned that governing is more difficult than criticizing.

The job of the politician isn’t to tell you what you want to hear, but to tell you what needs to be done.

Mayors make tough decisions; Senators make tough speeches.

A politician’s task was to bring reality and policy into the greatest possible accord with the ideal and the principled.

If I could solve these problems with passing laws in the Congress, I would do so.

As opposed to journalists, politicians cannot make do with questions. They must also offer answers.

We consistently allow politicians to get away with playing identity politics rather than demanding evidence of what they're going to do and how they're going to do it.

Government should steer, not row.

So I went into government with a clear mind about what the problems were, and what needed to be done.

I think I can regard myself as a political decision-maker.

One cannot legislate problems out of existence. It has been tried.

To govern is to choose. To appear to be unable to choose is to appear to be unable to govern.

You have to spend your political capital on great causes for your country.

I think people respect governments that take decisions and act decisively.

You elected government officials to make decisions and it's about time they started making good ones.

As governor, I learned the importance of having an agenda.

What Washington needs is adult supervision.