Barack Obama Quotes

We've come to be consumed by a 24-hour, slash-and-burn, negative ad, bickering, small-minded politics that doesn't move us forward. Sometimes one side is up and the other side is down. But there's no sense that they are coming together in a common-sense, practical, nonideological way to solve the problems that we face.

Politics is not longer about argument of discussions it is about trying to put your opponents into the box of the untouchables.

Nasty is the new normal in Florida. Politics here is very gutterlike. It's like a very bad reality TV show that still gets very high ratings.

I hate negative ads in general.

We tend to think of politics as bad, full of dirty tricks, negative ads, big campaigns, but I am here to explore the original meaning of politics, which is positive and has to do with balancing competing interests and looking for solutions.

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

What we Americans go through to pick a president is not only crazy and unnecessary but genuinely abusive. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent in a craven, cynical effort to stir up hatred and anger on both sides.

Our nation stands at a fork in the political road. In one direction lies a land of slander and scare; the land of sly innuendo, the poison pen, the anonymous phone call and hustling, pushing, shoving; the land of smash and grab and anything to win. This is Nixonland. America is something different.

It’s attack advertising. It’s dirty tricks advertising. It’s dishonest and lowers the level of the political conversation.

“The American people... are tired of the politics of personal destruction

Negative campaigning is wrong.

I am sick and tired of the negative, dark, divisive dangerous vision and behavior of people who support Donald Trump.

Hillary Clinton spent hundreds of millions of dollars on negative ads on me, many of which are absolutely untrue. They're untrue. And they're misrepresentations.

Donald Trump's campaign is as divisive as any we have seen in our lifetimes. It is built on stoking mistrust and pitting American against American. It's there in everything he says and everything he promises to do as president. This man is the nominee of the Party of Abraham Lincoln. We are watching it become the party of Trump. And that's not just a huge loss for our democracy. It is a threat to it, because Donald Trump's campaign adds up to an ugly, dangerous message to America.

Other Republican candidates may retort to personal attacks and negative ads.

It is time to set aside the old partisan bickering and finger-pointing and name-calling that comes from freeing parents to make different choices for their children.

This is what Newt Gingrich has wrought - is a politics in which it's very easy to destroy and very hard to build.

Unfortunately, every American citizen takes the same position... that we don’t like negative advertisements. But they work! And, as you see, many a candidate has prevailed by tearing down the reputation of an opponent in a more advantageous position.

It's a matter of fact that Senator Obama has spent more money on negative ads than any political campaign in history.

So much of modern politics is focused not on honest differences of policy but on personal attacks.

Politics has become a game of meaningless, mindless battles, conducted by unscrupulous methods and people, designed to transform even the most serious policy debates into sport.

politics were as bad as mathematics, and that the mission of politicians seemed to be calling each other names

If you look at [Donald] Trump's attacks on Jeb Bush, they've been pretty devastating.

Our politics are being hijacked by a comparatively small number of people who seek to dominate the debate by screaming the loudest. They see the world as an urgent struggle between true believers and nonbelievers. They attempt to impose strict litmus tests and insist on conformity. They demonize dissent and consider all political opponents their enemies. Fear is their favourite tactic as they try to divide and conquer

In a time of polarized politics there's one thing that more than ninety percent of Americans agree on, that our government is broken, and broken because of the money in politics.