Jason Kander Quotes

The last thing you want is to have to make a decision for political purposes.

One of the things about politics, when you're actually there, you realize, you're on a high wire and there is no net under you. On any given day, your campaign can implode for something that happens inadvertently or even intentionally.

Politicians worry about downside political risks. Generally speaking, they are risk minimizers.

If you have short term political problems, you behave in a short term way.

I think probably the majority of political actions don't go the way people are going to go. Just because there were unexpected consequences and maybe not the resolution people would have liked to have been seen doesn't mean it was less valid of an action.

'Yes' is a far more potent word than 'no' in American politics. By adopting the positions which animate the political agenda for the other side, one can disarm them and leave them sputtering with nothing to say.

It's interesting to play a politician who gets stuff done.

Politics is tricky; it cuts both ways. Every time you make a choice, it has unintended consequences.

One of the things that I think you see sometimes in politics is a certain degree of caution. It's usually advised by consultants who don't want to see you march to the end of a limb.

There's a presumption that somehow you calculate beforehand whether something is going to be good politically or not. I simply don't.

Good policy makes good politics and what I've done has been good politics.

Successful and unsuccessful political policies have one commonalty. The people who created the policies thought they would be successful.

Politics is not a laboratory experiment where you can control everything. You have to take calls even when you feel that matters may spin out of your hand.

A cardinal rule of politics is that if an issue has the potential to cause problems for a candidate, it is best to deal with it well before the election so the dust has time to settle.

I thought you would have to be insane to go into politics.

I think almost every political leader is always told that the next speech they make is the most crucial one.

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

When I first started talking about running for office, a lot of people said to me, 'Don't let the consultants change you,' and I'd always assured them that I wouldn't allow it to happen. But like it or not, I had to change. Not because of a consultant, but because I started to understand the cost of a stupid mistake.

Politics is like football ... Sometimes you have to punt.

He who wants to make history bear on politics must be sure that his history is objective; otherwise, history will not influence politics, but rather politics history.

A President has to do the image stuff that will help him so that he can do the substantive things he wants to do.

Ronald Reagan's advisors know that if he goes to sleep for even five minutes during the second debate, he'll be in trouble.

A statesman is judged by results. If his policy fails he goes. It may be unfair, but there is a kind of rough justice about it.

The White House is another world. Expediency is everything.

It is axiomatic in politics that the earlier one addresses a problem, the more the alternatives and the easier the solutions.