Walter Millis Quotes

Presidents have to decide what their popularity is for. Lyndon Johnson probably understood best that political popularity is a wasting asset. You had to use it when you had it.

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

A president can be unpopular for good reasons. You know, I'm not always on the side that the people are right, for God's sake. But, you know, he's not popular when he goes overseas. He couldn't go to Rosa Parks' funeral.

I think Hillary [Clinton] hears the anger in a broad swath of the American people, and she says, "OK, how do I help create a future that's good for you?"

If the people wanted my head I would bow without demur. If I had lost the confidence or respect of the people I would not want to live. The tragedy of the drama is that the very opposite is true.

If I were the American President I would rather be popular than have the power the destroy the world because however many puppets they have all over the Middle East - Saudi Arabia, Egypt and so on - they haven't got support from the people.

Ninety percent of people support background checks. Which means even people who can't pass a background check support background checks.

I don't look at polls, I pay no attention to them. I pay attention to the public, and the sense of where the public is on certain things, but you have to lead.

American public opinion, as you can see in the polls, radically changed from being against airstrikes to being heavily in favor that [President Obama] decided to do airstrikes. This is a classic example of leading from behind where he waits for public opinion. And now it's the public who's demanding he do something.

Now that I've got the will of the people at my back, I'm going to start enforcing the one-question rule. That was three questions.

A politician can do what he thinks is right, he just has to be sophisticated in how he goes about it. Those who seek a president who 'will disregard the polls and just lead,' ask for the political equivalent of 'The Charge of the Light Brigade.'

A president has to provide leadership to gain support.

Once when Phocion had delivered an opinion which pleased the people, he turned to his friend and said, "Have I not unawares spoken some mischievous thing or other?"

Finally, the president added, 'The American people are idealists, but they also want their leaders to be realistic...'

I am very anxious to please the public, particularly as it lives and lets live.

One of the things that you learn, having been in this [President's] office for four years, is the old adage of Abraham Lincoln's. That with public opinion there's nothing you can't do and without public opinion there's very little you can get done.

I'm not really much into politics, because it's rarely discussed in my line of work, but I know that Barack Obama is trying his best, and that at some point down the road, he's going to get it right.

Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.

You can't consider a president weak because he will have a Congress that Mexican voters have wanted to be co-responsible in the decisions to be taken... It will be through the leadership that I will exercise that we will be able to build the agreements in Congress.

Because the task of a political leader is to do what he believes is better for his country. Sometimes the public opinion is in favor; sometimes the public opinion needs a little bit more time to understand things.

The presidency is more than a popularity contest.

We have too many politicians who are poll-driven to excess. Polls are important. You've got to know what the public is thinking, but you can't let them drive you completely.

Weak presidents are neither respected nor electorally rewarded by their publics.

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

A charismatic president has a secret weapon: the public.