Phylicia Rashad Quotes

You can’t get to be an officeholder in America without buying television time.

We have to talk about the way we finance campaigns.

Obama has had more fundraisers than the last six presidents combined. And he's still losing in the money race!

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

My view on candidates on money is unless it's proven that the donor stole the money, the campaign keeps the money.

I don't think anyone's pushing for spending limits in the campaign.

Crossroads is second to none in our support of Tea Party candidates. In 2010 and '12, we spent over $30 million for Senate candidates who were Tea Party candidates. We spent almost $20 million for House candidates who were Tea Party candidates.

A million dollars in the presidential election is a spit in the ocean. It's not a lot of money.

People have their constitutional right to contribute to a campaign and if they have discretionary money that they want to contribute to a candidate, whether a Republican or a Democrat, they should be able to do so.

I've been outspent by my opponents every time I've run for U.S. Senate.

In 1988, as an unknown candidate, totally unknown, I won Iowa, came in second in New Hampshire, won South Dakota. I was ahead in every Super Tuesday state the day after South Dakota. The only problem was I didn't have enough money. I had a million dollars left, and Al Gore had three and Michael Dukakis had three and it was lights out.

It is not that candidates who get the most money win, but that winning candidates get the most money.

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.

Congressman are spending too much time raising money.

American politics is money and thirty second spots.

In a political contest, the use of some [money] is both right, and indispensable.

Public [campaign] financing and free television time are the things that will diminish the high influence that money has on politics.

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

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

All contributions by corporations to any political committee or for any political purpose should be forbidden by law.

Most important of all the structural reforms, we need to follow through on the recent Congressional effort to discipline the use of money in politics, by setting reasonable limits on campaign spending, limiting and publicizing individual and organizational gifts and channeling much more of the money (including … all general election spending) through the respective party committees rather than through individual candidates’ treasuries.

Spending limits have proven a monumental failure at limiting campaign spending in presidential elections, merely diverting the money underground.

If they can't suck money out of the Hamptons, a candidate really has to throw in the sponge.

There probably could be some mileage in running a comparative study about how best to finance electoral campaigns around the world.

The first thing I learned is that campaigns are about money. I had this romantic idea that campaigns were about law and debates and so forth, which is just not true. It's about money.