Ari Fleischer Quotes

I'm asking regular folks to be my super PAC.

Super PACs and a corrupt campaign finance system are destroying American democracy. We're proud that we have received four million individual contributions, more than any candidate in American history at this point.

Some Trumpsters asked me if it was really a problem that Trump doesn't have money to run commercials now. And I said he doesn't have the money, just doesn't have the money. "That's not good. He needs to be running commercials."

In fact, not only do I support eliminating soft money, but I support full public financing for campaigns.

The first thing you need to run for President is a budget of around $20 million dollars a day.

Our only real hope for democracy is that we get the money out of politics entirely and establish a system of publicly funded elections.

Ultimately, the question of campaign contributions will be decided by the public.

The cost of congressional and presidential campaigns has been leaping every two or four years. I think this year it will be 60 percent more than 1996; well over twice as much as in 1992 in the presidential and congressional races.

Online fundraising is so important to the Democratic Party.

The new rule of thumb is that 80% of a president's time must be spent in raising funds for their schools.

In order to be a top-tier candidate, I need 7.5 million dollars, and I currently have 0.0 million dollars.

It is campaign money that calls the tune, a fact recognized by every politician within a few minutes after getting into politics.

The goal of limiting campaign contributions is to find that line between contributions that are so high that a candidate feels beholden to a donor and contribution levels that are so low that a non-incumbent candidate has little chance of making an effective race.

Unless our democratic philosophy is wrong, there can be no evil in a candidate spending a legally permissible and necessary sum to approach the electorate and enable them to pass an informed judgment upon his qualifications.

Democracies need political parties and political parties need money.

In Canada we have limits on campaign spending and public funding of campaigns. This makes it easier for people [candidates] who don't have access to huge amounts of money.

Congressman are spending too much time raising money.

You don’t get campaign contributions just because it’s a philanthropic endeavor.

We’re going to the same people. Virtually all of my major donors are the same as their [the Democratic National Committee] major donors …. I can never compete with the President of the United States or the First Lady.

State party central committees were not providing very much help or raising much money, so the legislative leadership people started stepping in.

If the friends of the candidate choose to go to expense for committees and canvassing [campaigning] there are no means of preventing them; but such expenses out of the candidate’s own pocket, or any expenses whatever beyond the deposit of £50 (or £100), should be illegal and punishable.

The donor party is the 2 million people who contribute more than $5000 to political candidates. Unless you are elected by the donor party, you cannot run for major office.

We have to keep the old man’s money coming into the campaign but keep him out of it.

While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.

Spending for congressional campaigns is getting to be like the arms race.