Edward Brooke Quotes

The Doppler Effect: When running in a primary, candidate appears farther to the left or right than he or she in fact is, but as candidate nears the general election, candidate's views appear to approach the center.

I'm a moderate. I hang out in the middle. I vote against my party with some regularity and try to compromise. It doesn't appear right now that the Republican Party is welcoming moderates any more.

I think liberals would love to see the conservative party be more moderate, more middle of the road. I mean, my gosh, what do you call John McCain? Some would argue, what do you call Mitt Romney?

I don't intend to leave the Republican Party, but I would like to move the Republican Party more to the center.

… triangulation is the idea that you demonstrate to some set of swing voters that you are politically palatable by poking the extremes of both parties in the eye.

We need to tell the far-right and the far-left to go away and have people in the center solve the problem.

From the political angle, I'm trying to be apolitical if you will. I mean people say, 'Are you a red state or blue state?', I say, 'I'm purple.' I think there are great ideas on both sides of the aisle and neither side has cornered the market.

I say Republicans aren't right all the time. Democrats aren't wrong all the time - now, maybe most of the time, but not all the time.

I'm someone who believes in centrist governing philosophy.

I believe in operating in the big middle of the electorate and not being to the far right or the far left. I think you get so much more done.

We don't have a lot of Reagan-type leaders in our party. Remember Ronald Reagan Democrats? I want a Republican that can attract Democrats.

Leaders willing to demand centrist government and less alienating politics are rare. Moderation is not considered sexy; bipartisan initiatives are frequently deemed boring. Ironically, it has been left to a media celebrity to fill part of the yawning gap in the middle.

After President Obama took office, his campaign book 'The Audacity of Hope' receded into his past fast. Its sweet, naive, bipartisan 'let's reason together' passages fell away, too.

I think Republicans make a mistake when they seek to be 'Democrat light.'

I'm not someone who thinks Republicans are always wrong and Democrats are always right.

As the Republican Party has moved farther and farther to the right, I have found myself increasingly at odds with the Republican philosophy and more in line with the philosophy of the Democratic Party.

Bill Clinton was a liberal who could appeal to conservative-leaning Bubba voters.

Centrism is bogus.

The Democratic Party needs to look carefully at moving towards the middle, where the American people are.

Manhattan's probably one of the bluest parts in the country, and Indiana's definitely one of the redder states. I have sympathy for both sides.

A candidate who tries to steer a path down the middle in an effort to 'win independents' runs the risk of convincing everyone that they have no core values. As much as - or more than - any other voters, independents want to see conviction and authenticity.

Friends, there is no Left in American politics.

We must govern from the middle, or we will not be able to govern at all.

We are now living in a post-Roosevelt, post-Reagan universe. What comes next will not be post-partisan, because faction is an intrinsic human impulse.

Because liberalism typically doesn't sell in American presidential politics, liberal candidates tend to run as culturally conservative centrists.