Campaign Rhetoric Quotes

No wonder Americans hate politics when, year in and year out, they hear politicians make promises that won't come true because they don't even mean them -- campaign fantasies that win elections but don't get nations moving again.

Principles aren't of much account anyway, except at election time. After that you hang them up to let them season.

You call my candidate a horse thief, and I call yours a lunatic, and we both of us know it's just till election day. It's an American custom, like eating corn on the cob. And, afterwards, we settle down quite peaceably and agree we've got a pretty good country - until next election.

We need to understand that in the end, if we're going to make a positive difference in the future, we can't have election cycles where one side, the middle and the right side, they talk trash.

Barack Obama is an opportunist, mostly supported by the financial institutions. He had no positions on anything. He's very intelligent. If you look at his program, almost no substance. Change, hope, what's that? I mean, he had some policies, but it was almost certain that he would give them up instantly, which he did.

For Donald Trump, during his candidacy, he became a polarizing candidate, which included, along the way, insulting a lot of people.

Absolutely I'm going to be talking about it, because it's in the zeitgeist and it's happening. It's an election year. It's the biggest election. Every election is a big election, so whenever anybody says that it kinds of grates me, but it's a fiasco. It's turned into a complete circus act, so of course you have to make fun of it, but responsible journalists definitely are being irresponsible. They're giving [Donald Trump] so much air time.

The First Law of Politics: Never say anything in a national campaign that anyone might remember.

First of all, she Hillary Clinton is going to raise taxes on the middle class. I actually think that's the only truthful thing she's said in about three weeks.

Vice presidents are at times tasked with issuing direct broadsides against enemies while the top guy stays above the fray. But never before has a vice president served as an attack dog against his own party's voters.

President Obama ran a campaign in 2008 that was entirely expected from a non-incumbent. You promise, and you imply that if you elect me, everything good is going to happen.

Political campaigns are the graveyard of real ideas and the birthplace of empty promises.

I haven't been in Washington long, but I have learned that it is a place filled with people who say one thing to get elected and do the opposite once they get there.

The Republican I ran against, at the end of the campaign, had decided that I was "a friend of terrorists" and "a friend of pedophiles." That's the kind of crap they came out with. I expect that's the kind of crap they'll come out with again.

When you have a 12-minute debate over whether lipstick on a pig refers to a demeaning comment about the vice presidential candidate, you know we're not talking about health reform, we're not talking about energy policy, we're not talking about balancing the budget. And you know, it's fairly stupid.

Political pandering comes in all shapes and sizes, but every four years the presidential primary bring us in contact with its purest form - praising ethanol subsidies amid the corn fields of Iowa.

My heart aches watching Donald Trump... pouring his heart out... How can anyone doubt his sincerity?

It's fascinating watching the debates [of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump], with the search for the new president. It's like a car crash, unfolding in front of your eyes. The level of personal attacks!

Donald Trump is not the real deal. I think as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio made that very clear.

Hillary Clinton will be a disaster for our country, a disaster in so many other ways.

Donald Trump trying to do to the American voter what he did to the people that signed up for this course: He's making promises he has no intention of keeping.

Americans are used to the clatter of campaign promises hitting ground as they are thrown out the window.

Donald Trump is at his very best, at his very best, when he talks about the issues.

I think the air is out of the gun control balloon, and I think what popped the balloon is politics and elections.

Obviously in a campaign, people say lots of things that they find, when they get in the office, life's a little different.