James R. Clapper Quotes

Originally, the main purpose of the convention was to determine who the party would have as the presidential nominee and the vice-presidential nominee.

Let me just be very clear that the Republican Party will select a nominee that will beat Bill Clinton.

If the question at Chicago had been who shall be the next President? instead of who shall be the candidate? beyond all question the choice would have fallen on New York's illustrious statesman .

I could probably win the Presidency if I ran, but I don’t think I could win the nomination.

I think we should have the majority of the party's voters decide who they want as their nominee.

I will support the Republican nominee. I don't think that's going to be Donald Trump. My party has historically nominated someone who's a mainstream conservative.

There is a system in BJP as to who would be projected as a chief ministerial candidate or a prime ministerial candidate. The proper forum to take decision is only central parliamentary board.

So the result was that as one approached a political convention for most of the 19th century and for most of the 20th century until the 1960's, part of the drama was the fact that you didn't know ultimately who was going to be the nominee at the end of that convention week.

If you had found the right candidate in 2000 or 2004, and you could have put that man or woman, given them ballot access in September of the election year, they could have won the election.

I'm saying there is no way that I will do this, because it's really not me. I know my strengths, and governor Romney needs to find someone who wants to run with him. There are many people who will do it very, very well, and I'll support the ticket.

Common wisdom dictates that the vice president should provide balance to the ticket by representing a different part of the country, another set of experiences, or a basketful of electoral votes.

One of the problems we saw in the last presidential election in our party is that our nominee, while winning the election, which we ought never to forget, often lost sight of the difference between strategy and tactics.

You have had presidential candidates over the last 30 years who would have had a very hard time getting nominated under the old system. One example is John Kennedy.

I may not be the favourite candidate of some people within the Republican establishment, but the voters made a decision.

I firmly believed throughout 1971 that the major hurdle to winning the presidency was winning the Democratic nomination. I believed that any reasonable Democrat would defeat President Nixon. I now think that no one could have defeated him in 1972.

But to make a long story short, I decided that I was going to run, and I announced that I was going to run for president in Florida, I would be the favorite son from Florida, and that would stop Johnson and Kennedy from dividing up the state.

I shall be nominated on the next ballot.

In my years working in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, I had learned that those who seek the presidency are prepared to stop at almost nothing to get their party’s nomination.

A caucus is basically an undemocratic method of selecting a candidate.

The convention will be dead-locked, and after the other candidates have gone their limit, some twelve or fifteen men, worn-out and bleary-eyed for lack of sleep, will sit down about two in the morning around a table in a smoke-filled room in some hotel and decide the nomination. When that time comes [Warren Gamaliel] Harding will be selected.

The caucus is not open to former Senators.

I am in favor of General Taylor as the Whig candidate for the Presidency because I am satisfied that we can elect him, that he will give us a Whig administration and that we cannot elect any other Whig.

I do not allow myself to suppose that either the [Republican] convention or the League have concluded to decide that I am either the greatest of the best man in America, but rather they have concluded it is not best to swap horses while crossing the river, and have further concluded that I am not so poor a horse that they might not make a botch of it in trying to swap.

The team doesn't run for the presidency, one man runs for the presidency.

I will only run for President if I'm nominated by both parties.