Mark McKinnon Quotes

I will not speak with disrespect of the Republican Party. I always speak with respect of the past.

These days everything is discussed in terms of political partisan perspective including the weather—especially the weather.

Some Democrats deserve to be criticized.

When you don't have accountability, there's no limit to the things that people will say. One of the restraints on the vitriol and the filth that so often is part of the American political debate is that candidates have to stand by their ads.

I think politicians do great things in the world, but I don't think they're the only ones who can. I don't like all the rhetoric and the finger pointing.

In a lifetime of observing and participating in political debate, I have seen a lot of meanness.

I've decided to cut out the part of the speech where I say anything nice about Democrats.

Does politics have to be injected into everything?

I mean, look, we're living in a country where you can't have a non-denominational response. If you're slightly critical of either party, all of the partisans jump on you like you're a lunatic.

We are losing sight of civility in government and politics. Debate and dialogue is taking a back seat to the politics of destruction and anger and control. Dogma has replaced thoughtful discussion between people of differing views.

When elected officials and others contribute to a climate and culture that fosters hyper-partisanship, we've got to blow the whistle.

I don’t chose my friends and associates on the basis of political party. The Senate has become altogether too nasty.

Campaigns are partisan. Governing should not be partisan.

The tone is toxic here in Washington and we are exporting it around the country.

I am basically a supporter of Barack Obama - it is not easy to be a post-partisan president in a hyper-partisan era.

Donald Trump's election was a watershed moment. Even those like me, who had previously pulled levers for candidates of both parties, felt that Mr. Trump had not only violated all sense of common decency, but, alarmingly, that he seemed to have no idea that there even existed such an unspoken code of civility and dignity.

Since my adolescence, divisive politics has bothered me.

It used to be that Democrats and Republicans would disagree, but they could be social to each other. There were times during the year that we acted together in the good of the country.

Well, I don't know too many governors who are flaming ideologues.

You have a political and media elite who have an idiom by which they describe politics. It's highly, highly polarised. It's right, left, red, blue, up, down, victorious, crushed.

It used to be you had real friends on the other side of the aisle. It's not like that anymore. Society has changed. The public is to blame as well. I think the people have gotten dumber.

There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.

I hate politics. It's slimy. Any job where people pander for votes, I don't like. The country has gotten so partisan that if you're not on my side, you're the enemy. The only thing I ever try to support is a third party, like Unity08. We need more parties and more choice.

For a person who promised hope and civility in politics, Mr. Obama has shown a borderline obsessiveness in blaming Mr. Bush.

In college, I was a fiercely committed Democrat - a meeting with Jack Kemp, then Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, challenged my blind partisanship.