Campaign Ethics Quotes

We need clean candidates. Party A puts up a candidate and he is terribly corrupt. Party B puts up a candidate who is even more corrupt. There is no choice. So I have the Clean Candidate Campaign.

Don't make election popularity largely a matter of which candidate hires the most creative and effective propagandists. Insist that it be, instead, a running conversation with the public.

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

I absolutely intend to return every penny given to me by my Democratic colleagues and Democratic leaders.

If you have to tell the truth about the fat content in a hamburger, why shouldn’t you have to tell the truth about another individual who is offering for public office.

I have a record of wanting to make sure that campaigns are open and financing is fair, but it can't just be one sided.

Why should I ? I don't need to run down my opponent through filthy language in order to win. The voters don't expect this from their representatives.

The golden rule has no place in a political campaign.

I never say bad things about my opponent.

Do not run a campaign that would embarrass your mother.

The legal foundation for the targeted killing campaign is not simply shaky, but rotten.

I'm not trying to get myself up a notch on the ladder by shoving somebody else down on the ladder, whether it's a candidate or the president of the United States or anybody else. I just don't believe that's the way one oughta campaign, I've never done that.

I can admit I tried coke [cocaine] as I have no intention to run for president.

I'm not an old, experienced hand at politics. But I am now seasoned enough to have learned that the hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning.

While campaigns typically purchase mailing lists, it was strange to use donor money to buy a mailing list from the campaign's own candidate, especially when [Newt] Gingrich could have gifted the mailing list for free as an in-kind donation.

I'm not an old, experienced hand at politics. But I am now seasoned enough to have learned that the hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning.

I said during the course of the campaign I didn't like it and I don't like the idea of having an opponent's picture on your ads and it would be nice to see candidates sign a pledge like that.

I think when a campaign is dishonest in the ads they run about another candidate, it diminishes the campaign, it diminishes the candidate, and it diminishes the presidency.

We've already seen other candidates set up these secretive super PACs where they don't take any responsibility for what they're funding... because that's how the game has always been played. I've been very proud to tell people, 'I'm stepping forward, and you can see every single one of our donors.'

When you have the Chief of Staff of the Republican National Committee and the political director of the Romney campaign, and their two companies get $150 million at the end of the campaign for the 'fantastic' get-out-the-vote program... some of this borders on RICO violations.

...the very notion that a candidate should openly solicit votes violated the principled presumption that such behavior itself represented a confession of unworthiness for national office.

I don't think the candidate would be directly responsible for things that their supporters say, but when it gets to a certain level, they ought to say, 'Cut it out.'

My husband is absolutely opposed to any negative campaigning at all.

I don’t think that you have to run down someone’s reputation in order to run for the Presidency.

Groups like ours are potentially dangerous to the political process ... A group like ours could lie through its teeth and the candidate it helps stays clean.