Ronald Steel Quotes

Modern politics today requires a mastery of television. I've never really warmed up to television and, in fairness to television, it's never warmed up to me.

Television changed politics forever. If you’re not any good at it, forget it.

Politicians need a film appreciation course.

You often see politicians who try to put on a different persona; they think they should be more jolly or serious. Invariably, the persona they choose is worse than their own.

I'm really interested in how we view the public figure, what makes a public figure, what makes a celebrity, and how images make politicians, so I take an interest in politics, but it's really an interest in the image.

Without television, Richard Nixon would not have a chance. He would not have a prayer of being elected because the press would not let him get through to the people.

As the age of television progresses, the Reagans will be the rule, not the exception. To be perfect for television is all a President has to be these days.

It’s not only what you do in politics. It’s what you appear to do.

The response is to the image, not to the man, since 99 percent of the voters have no contact with the man.

It may not be fair, but it's true that in politics - in TV broadcasting, in any public figure - people pay attention to your appearances. One of the things we were all talking about was Al Gore won't be running for president unless we see that he's losing weight. Americans usually elect a taller man president.

Nowadays, you cannot be a very Effective political figure without Having a demonstrable sense of humor. People take to it.

For fear of the newspapers politicians are dull, and at last they are too dull even for the newspapers.

Hillary Clinton's not seen as empathetic and compassionate.

It's like in politics: You can have great intentions for the world, but if you're not a good speaker and if you're not the sort of person that people can intimately link with, then it makes it very easy to say, "Well, they're not a nice person."

I have no more obligation to spin. When you’re in the White House, you spin.

Politics is about wanting to be loved.

The future of politics is performance.

Many people hardly ever see a politician as a person anymore. Instead, a politician is a shadow they watch on television, not knowing whether he is speaking impromptu or reading a text written for him by anonymous advisers or experts from a screen hidden behind the cameras. Citizens no longer perceive their politician as a living human being, for they never have and will never see him that way. They see only his image, created for them by TV, radio and newspaper commentators. It also happens, rather often, that politicians do not actually talk to each other but only to one another's shadows as they appear in the media.

When I was in politics, I always got accused of image-making and trying to make them something they weren't. Truth was - and nobody ever discovered it, although I was in that business for twenty years - what I was trying to do was to get them to be themselves.

When you're actually president, the spin matters a lot less.

Jeremy Corbyn confuses the public because he looks like a librarian and enjoys baking bread.

Donald Trump - you can say a lot of negative things about him, and I do, and I think he's completely unprepared for the office, and he lacks the fabric to lead this nation, but if there's one thing that he understands, it's branding and how to navigate the media.

To be in the media is to be in the wings. Being in politics is being on the stage.

Many people in public life are not good campaigners.

The American people know Joe Biden. They know his values. They know what he stands for.