Jay Leno Quotes

There's all this talk about Arnold Schwarzenegger. Well, you know where he is now? Visiting Mexico, which I think means that he is definitely going to run for governor. Arnold is smart. He's in Mexico campaigning with the very people who'll be living here by election time.

Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.

Do you ever get the feeling that the only reason we have elections is to find out if the polls were right?

They have not always elected the best leaders, particularly after a long period in which they have not used this facility of free election. You tend to lose the habit.

Democracy is about voting and it's about a majority vote. And it's time that we started exercising the Democratic process.

You have had presidential candidates over the last 30 years who would have had a very hard time getting nominated under the old system. One example is John Kennedy.

Organising free and fair elections is more important than the result itself.

A lot of people criticize the primaries, but I think they are absolutely essential to the education of the President of the United States.

Conventions don't nominate people anymore. Primaries do.

The voters of the country decide who they want to support, and the delegates are elected to also make a determination of who would be in the best interest of the party and the country to be our nominee.

We are fighting for free, fair and transparent elections, which means that every citizen of Belarus will be able to participate in those elections.

This is the democratic process at work, What you're seeing with this process is the Iraqi people embracing American-style democracy.

It's the most important decision I've had to make since 1978 when I decided to get abikini wax. [On his running for California Governor]

Citizenship means every four years you put a mark somewhere and you go home and let other guys run the world. It's a very destructive ideology.

I know nothing grander, better exercise, better digestion, more positive proof of the past, the triumphant result of faith in human kind, than a well-contested American national election.

Anyone can run for office. When I ran for Governor of Minnesota, the only requirement was that you had to be a state resident. I believe you had to be over thirty five years old, something like that. That's the way our country was founded. That anyone can run for office. That you're not required to be a lawyer, you're not required to be anything.

Voting in this country has essentially been relegated to a very fledging group of election officials, who receive no training and operate on shoestring budgets on one hand, and political consultants whose job is to get their candidates elected on the other. And when you have that kind of scenario, it's really hard to describe yourself as a vibrant democracy. It's an embarrassment.

What does a political revolution look like? It means that 80 percent of the people vote in national elections, not 40 percent. It means that billionaires can't make unlimited campaign contributions and buy and sell politicians. It means that the U.S. government represents the needs of all the people, not just the 1 percent and their lobbyists.

The American system is, in many ways, more difficult, certainly far more expensive and much longer than a parliamentary system, and I really admire the people who subject themselves to it. Even when I, you know, think they should not be elected president, I still think, well, you know, good for you I guess, you're out there promoting democracy and those crazy ideas of yours.

In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard's vote.

Term limits mean that you don't trust the voters. 'Stop me before I vote again.'

Take it from me: Elections matter.

The rational and peaceable instrument of reform, the suffrage of the people.

I think you have to [vote] and the reason you have to go vote is an important one, and that is because the day you vote is the day that you will feel the most ineffectual you will feel all year.

All the more reason we need to stand up for our democracy now. If we're going to solve the crises that are barreling down on us, we need democracy, and our democracy needs to start with an open and inclusive debate. That doesn't mean 20 candidates. There are four candidates who are on the ballot for just about every voter in America.