Mark Shields Quotes

Did I say that the President's entire job is image management? Of course not.

Tim Kaine kind of gives the warmer, human face of the Democrats.

Political folk talk a lot these days about 'messaging' - a neologism designed to describe the way in which parties and politicians consciously characterize their efforts. It is only intended to be positive - i.e., 'Our messaging is designed to show we care.'

Appearances are not truth. But every politician knows that his or her image, as well as his or her actions, can make the difference between failure and success.

The most successful politicians are the ones who embrace their best traits while turning their liabilities into loveable attributes. And yet, many a candidate tries to run as something they aren't simply because the strategy dictates it.

Democrats are just very poor, in general, at explaining what it is when they accomplish something. I think that they are pretty bad at it. Republicans are very good at it…. Democrats like to pick each other apart.

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

A politician wants to come off as a happy warrior. To be contemplative seems almost effete, fancy – dispiriting somehow to much of your audience. He [Barack Obama] is not afraid to be this way at all.

Democrats are very good at governing. When it comes to messaging, I'm not too sure about.

There's a normal tendency in the campaign, during a crisis, for the country to rally around the White House. vThat may help Al Gore in this campaign, but on the other hand, George W. Bush handled himself so well the other night on foreign policy that I think it fortified him just before this crisis broke.

The Democrats want you to think Trump has sold you out and thrown you under the business. They want you to think that Trump has given away his mandate in exchange for doing deals. They want you to believe that Trump loves deals; he loves action.

The Republican brand has been so badly damaged that if Republicans try to run an anti-Obama, anti-Rev. Wright or, if Sen. Clinton wins, anti-Clinton campaign, they are simply going to fail. This model has already been tested with disastrous results.

It really does seem that the Democrat's problem isn't that they're calling for timetables - it's that they're calling them 'timetables'. You're up against Bush and the Republicans - you've got to bring some zing. Don't call them timetables - call them 'Patriot Dates', 'Freedom Deadlines'... 'Glory Goals'.

I do think Hillary Clinton should have pivoted and say, I am change, I am change, because people do want some change.

When they [Democrats] running all these ads that are characterizing [Mitt] Romney as a rich, insensitive, out of touch, aloof nerd who loved having his dog on the roof of the station wagon, who didn't care when the wife of an employee dies with cancer.

I don't think the Democrats should think in narrow tactical terms about mid-term elections.

[Is the Conservative Party still the Nasty Party?] I said it was perceived as the Nasty Party. And is it? I don't think that it's a phrase that people today would apply to the Party. I think that the perception of the Party has changed.

How does conservatism find its way into the body politic? I think most people actually live their lives that way, but they have been poisoned into not voting that way because the brand - conservatism brand, Republican brand - has been summarily destroyed over the years.

How could Hillary clinton not come off as human! I mean, even Nurse Ratched was human. I don't think people are interested in 30 years of the past, and I don't get this notion of change-maker.

I think if Donald Trump skipped out on a debate, for whatever reason he gave, I don't think it would help him at all.

I think that probably in some areas the Labour message about some of the things that they said we were going to do - and which we weren't going to do - cut through.

It was gonna be a race [2016] that set a foundation for the Left in the future. But given the math, I didn't think he was gonna make it. And so I started to shift to Hillary [Clinton] and to discussions of the platform and discussions of what to do.

I think that the Democrats can be successful nationally in the future if we are able to capture some of the complexity of people's lives right now.

Jeb Bush has to distance himself from what they call the Bush brand. So he keeps saying, 'I am my own man.' But when Governor Chris Christie is out on the campaign trail, he's always saying, 'I'm my own man, plus another guy.'