Coalition Building Quotes

Politics is the art of the possible.

I wouldn’t be too serious about bipartisanship. It’s a great myth that ought to be fostered. And don’t bring too damn much scholarship to bear on it. You’ll prove it out of existence if you’re not careful.

When you are President you have to get something done, and that often means compromise.

Labour has to be a big tent that appeals to everyone - not just its activists.

I have a mindset that says bipartisanship ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view.

I look at what the president [Barack Obama] it doing, it adds up to me. We just have to keep - try to get more support for those people on the ground in Syria and Iraq who have to actually physically take the territory back.

The importance of building relationships among colleagues, of trying to create coalitions behind the issues that you are championing, was not something I ever had much insight into until I was elected and started serving in the Senate.

While a truly national third party wouldn't necessarily be bad, smaller niche parties are ill-suited to our federalist system.

In politics... shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.

In campaigning, you want to slay your opponent. In governing, you want to make love to your opponent.

I think, while it is true that the Hillary Clinton and I voted differently on the war in Iraq, what is important is that we learn the lesson of the war in Iraq. And that lesson is intrinsic to my foreign policy if elected president, is the United States cannot do it alone. We cannot be the policeman of the world. We are now spending more I believe than the next eight countries on defense. We have got to work in strong coalition with the major powers of the world and with those Muslim countries that are prepared to stand up and take on terrorism.

You've got the principled people who maybe are on salaried jobs, or CEOs, entrepreneurs, and all of those that are great people, but if you're not appealing - the permanent coalition is to join that with traditional Americans who feel like, that things aren't going well for them, and to develop policies that improve their lifestyle, not just upper-income lifestyles. And once that's believed by working people, that it's serious and a commitment and you care about people like me, for a change, Republicans could create a new majority.

Politics is the art of making wha appearts to be impossible possible.

I think it's very important to always make sure that you're talking to the entire coalition and to as many Americans as possible; not to go chasing after one little group or another. The Democrats would bring new groups into their party and not notice that larger groups are going out the back door.

Beating the tea party gang is more important than who does the beating.

When it comes to the greater Middle East, McMaster brings to the table his own deep knowledge of Iraq and Afghanistan, countries where he served for many years.

We cannot guarantee the human rights of any oppressed group alone.

We've got this arc of instability from North Africa to South Asia, and we have to pay close attention to it. And we have to build coalitions, something that I did to take on the Iranian nuclear program, and what I will do as president to make sure that we defeat these terrorist networks.

Partisanship is not necessarily a bad thing. It leads to new leadership and new opportunities.

There are moderates in Israel. There are moderates in Iran, there are moderates in the Republican Party, moderates in the Democratic Party. What we need to do is we need link all of these moderates together and to figure out a way by which this particular coalition can speak to important issues to marginalize the voice of the extremists.

I'm always looking for an opportunity to bring progressive Democrats together with some conservative libertarian types, because there are places where we can agree.

Party politics in modern democratic society means pandering to a wide variety of different groups and sympathizing with their often quite base motives, such as revenge, power, booty, and spoils, to maintain the necessary level of support.

Before and during the first phase of the war his administration repeatedly maligned the UN but now, that Iraq has turned into a quagmire, it is asking the UN for help.

I want to continue to serve as whip of the caucus.

People love to talk about the old bipartisanship. But it wasn't really bipartisanship. Yeah, they had a different label. But they're replaced now by people with basically the same views.